It's Saturday and we are on our way to the Cornicopious Center which is a place for seniors and they are holding a meeting about winterizing your home or apartment, however that is not why we are going. We are taking the bus to get a bus pass (reduced fare for eligible seniors). The sun is shining and it is a beautiful day. The streets are crowded with people shopping and going to and fro perhaps getting ready for tomorrow's Super Bowl. We must transfer to another bus so we get off and wait for the traffic light to change. While waiting I feel something on the bottom of my topcoat. There it is again. What the? I look around and it's an elderly blind man tapping my coat with his cane.
I had seen him on our bus. We got off the back, while I guess he got off from the front. Anyway before I could open my mouth my wife is asking him where he wants to go! He says to the bank across the street (the opposite direction he is facing and the opposite direction we are going). My wife asks me to wait while she walks him across the busy intersection (it's six corners; Milwaukee Avenue, Irving Park Road and Cicero Avenue).
She walks him and I wait lighting up a cigarette. A disheveled man with dark hair, beard and dirty clothes asks me for a cigarette. I give him two and a lite. It takes some time for the traffic lights to change and my wife finally returns. But before she did I kept wondering to myself about this woman. How many other people would have taken this blind man's hand? There were many people around but it was only she that reached out. Now I ask you, isn't she one in a million!