Normally when a man or even a woman or child pulls a knife on me in a drugstore, I call “time out” and hustle to another drugstore. When it comes to getting my business, a person – especially an employee — pulling a knife is generally a deal-breaker.

Not so this time, a fondly remembered holiday weekend when some helpful retail employees turned Black Friday into Bright Friday.

To help explain why, we give you one of our greatest Americans, Paul Harvey, a man those of a certain age will remember as closing every optimistic broadcast with his trademark and upbeat, “Goodday!”

God bless and rest his vocal cords.

The late newsman used to remind us that when we give directions, we’re more likely than not tell a person to “go to the red light and …”

“But,” Paul Harvey would say in a lyrical voice that rose until reaching a perfect crescendo at sentence’s end, “that light is GREEN as often as it is RED!…”

(Heard him say it once in the Monroe Civic Center during a Sunday afternoon “concert.” Will never forget it. We exploded like Swifties on speed. Paul was the man, which is another story. America could use him these days…)

Paul Harvey reminded us often on his daily radio show that we humans are flawed and strange creatures, and that we are mostly, by nature, pessimists, with no real reasons to be. (I fooled myself for a long time into thinking I was an optimist, but really I’m no more than pessimist with a decent attitude. It’s a start!)

Paul Harvey was — and remains — right. We’d do well to start seeing the bright side of things or at least give life – and people — the benefit of the doubt.

Consider this recent overheard observation from a consumer who complained with amusement that the employees in one drugstore were nice but that the employees in the same chain drugstore five miles away made the Wicked Witch look like Glinda.

It’s never the store or the organization. Those things are made up of us. Of humans. We are the light that shines or the darkness that fails.

My granddaddy always told me that it’s not the world that’s messed up: it’s the people in it.

But … now and then, when you least expect it, Providence will drop you a reminder that good and decent people are everywhere. They’re trying to do the right thing, and with no big hidden agenda. Most people are just like you and me, trying to get by, not meaning any harm, trying to do the next right thing in spite of being part of a warped species.

Some people don’t just see the green light. They are light. At least on certain days. We all have our moments.

So when I walked into the out-of-town drugstore at dusk on a post-Thanksgiving Friday, all I needed was a phone charger to replace the one that had just died an untimely death. Without a phone charger, I can’t listen to the college football games on the way home. Or anything. This was a big deal to a tired and troubled me, in a foreign town, five lonely hours from home.

The lady at the register was Alisha. Showed me just what I needed. Told me to keep my receipt and try it out in my car.

This one little piece of plastic was keeping it from fitting. They didn’t have any others for me to try. That’s when Jonathan showed up flashing his knife. It appeared in his hand like a handkerchief from a magician’s sleeve. I wondered what this guy was doing working back in the photo lab when he could have a career on stage. Or with the CIA.

“Bet I can fix yours like I fixed mine,” he said, and less than a half-minute later, little plastic shavings were on the glass counter, his knife had disappeared, and a happy customer headed back to Louisiana, all charged up.

They might have wanted to do anything other than work the late shift at the evening drugstore that day. But they seemed genuinely happy to help a guy they didn’t know, a man who’d spent less than $15 in their store. I’ll probably never see them again. All I could do when I got home, fully charged, was write their manager to say thanks.

From now on, whenever I read of Black Friday fistfights, I’ll think of Alisha and Jonathan, and how they made a stranger’s day, gave him a little light at the start of a long, dark drive. I hope they caught every green light on their way home.

I vote for more Bright Fridays.

Goodday!

Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu .