Strangers have done many nice things for me, but the most prominent memory I have is of an act of kindness to both my mother and me. I was about 12. My mother and I were driving home from visiting my grandmother for Christmas. We were on an empty 2-lane highway in what seemed like the middle of nowhere when a slow leak in the back right tire finally caught up with us. It was late and a blizzard was hitting the area pretty hard. We drove for another minute or two when we saw a house up a long driveway with its porch light on. My mother nursed the car (an '88 Dodge Aries K, for those who are interested) up to the top of the drive. Neither my mother nor I knew how to properly change a tire, so she knocked on the door and explained our situation to a man who seemed to be in his fifties (if I had to guess). He put on his coat and stepped out, took a look at the flat and asked if we had a spare. We dug the donut out of the trunk. He jacked up the car and changed the tire for us. I remember my mother pulled out her wallet offering to pay the man for his help and he refused. He simply said, "Do something nice for someone else." The next week my mother saw a man in a grocery store parking lot with a dead battery and offered up her K-car for a boost. Debt paid, I suppose.
We've driven that same route many times since, and we've never been able to figure out which house we stopped at. So, wherever you are sir, thank you for changing our tire.