On May 1, 1969, a soft-spoken children’s television host named Fred Rogers sat before a Senate subcommittee. Funding for public television was on the line, and the chairman, Senator John Pastore, called himself a pretty tough guy. Rogers didn’t read his prepared statement. He just talked about children. He explained that his show dealt with things like getting a haircut and the anger kids feel in families, and how he ended each program telling every child, “There’s no person in the whole world like you, and I like you, just the way you are.” Then he recited the words of a song about what to do with the mad that you feel. Pastore said he had goose bumps and told him, “Looks like you just earned the 20 million dollars.”
In 1939 a London stockbroker named Nicholas Winton worked his day job and then spent his evenings arranging permits, foster homes, and money so that eight trains could carry 669 children, most of them Jewish, out of Prague to safety in Britain before the war closed the borders. He hardly ever talked about it, and for nearly 50 years the story sat in a scrapbook his wife found in their attic. In 1988 the BBC show That’s Life! invited him into its studio audience, and on a later show the host asked, “Does anyone here tonight owe their life to Nicholas Winton?” More than two dozen grown men and women sitting all around him stood up to thank the humble man who had saved them.
In April 2008, Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky hit the first home run of her life, but she missed first base, turned back, and tore up her knee. She could barely crawl back to the bag, and the rules said her own teammates couldn’t help her. That’s when Mallory Holtman, a first baseman on the other team, Central Washington, asked the umpire if they could carry her. Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace picked Sara up and carried her around the bases, gently letting her touch each one with her good leg. That home run knocked their own team out of the playoffs, but Holtman said it was simply the right thing to do.
In December 2012, at a cross-country race in Burlada, Spain, Kenyan Olympic medalist Abel Mutai was way out front. Just short of the finish, he got confused and pulled up about ten meters early, thinking he had already crossed the line. Spanish runner Iván Fernández Anaya caught up to him and could easily have sprinted past to win. Instead, he stayed behind and used gestures to guide Mutai across the line first. He said afterward that Mutai was the rightful winner and he didn’t deserve to win that way.
Oseola McCarty spent her life washing and ironing other people’s clothes in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In 1995 she gave $150,000, most of her life savings, to the University of Southern Mississippi to help students who needed scholarships. People all over the country were so moved that gifts poured in to add to it. She hoped the scholarship would one day reach a million dollars, and in 2025 the university announced it had. A washerwoman’s quiet faithfulness is still sending kids to college.
