. . . Since I was 11, I remember my mother always telling me that if I find money that don’t belong to me to don’t keep it. She used to tell me give it back to the owner if I know them, or give it to an adult. – Martin Greenidge, car washer – and an honest man.
THAT HUMBLE AND?KIND MAN, now turning 60, and whom we feature on Page 22 of today’s WEEKEND?NATION is testament to the notion that honesty is the best policy – for those people who benefit from your kind action; for you whose gentle deed brings you pleasantness of spirit and whole clearness of conscience: that feeling of completeness.
It doesn’t always have to be a sacrificial act to be of profound kindness, and one doesn’t have to be high and mighty to influence others into a practice of thoughtfulness. As Martin showed, considerateness can be fostered by a mother’s soft but constant reminder, and the exemplary deed of a humble man of modest means can fire up others better off into being their “neighbour’s brother”.
That the postman Tyrone Evelyn, into whose hands Martin pressed the found envelope of bills and money and left, would elect to leave Taylor’s Cycle Centre where he was and go pay for the owner of the envelope bills he had discovered were due that very day spoke more to commendable concern than it did to duty.
At a time when we are being presented with disgust, scorn, envy, covetousness, argument, conflict, road rage, haunting anger, even homicide, it is refreshing to be able to speak to man’s humanity to man.
It is a moment Leroy Smith, the owner of the lost and found envelope will reflect upon for years to come; it’s a story many a Barbadian will tell for a long time to come: the blind man who lost his money and was cared for by the Samaritan “twins” of Martin and Tyrone.
Charity suffereth long and is indeed kind. It’s a serious thought, even if comedian Bob Hope was clowning around: “If you haven’t any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.”
