There are no strangers

This is a tale of one woman's experience with a stranger and the happy results.

Why tell this story? Because it captures, in a letter to the editor, the spirit of this holiday season, which stretches from giving thanks to the celebration of a central Christian belief: the incarnation of God.

I continue to be mystified by the reports I hear of travel misadventures. I am particularly surprised when someone tells me that an entire nation is rude because of one experience with one person.

Take the French, for example. Somehow the French have, in far too many American minds, acquired a patina of rudeness.

"You can't believe how snobby the French are," one acquaintance lamented after a trip to Paris.

That's right. I can't believe it. I can't believe it because the experiences of my wife and I have left us with great memories of so many warm and kind people we have met there.

When we moved to New York City in the late 1960s, we were similarly warned to beware of hateful New Yorkers.

I'm sorry. That's not who we found there -- except, maybe, that waiter at Fine and Shapiro's deli on West 72nd Street who played the role of a snooty New York waiter to perfection.

But the letter to the editor. Let me tell you about it.

The letter is from Su Taylor, who lives in Inverness, the capital of the Highlands in Scotland. It's the gateway for most tourists to Loch Ness and its mysterious monster. But Inverness is also the front door for the Highlands, a place of history and natural beauty that is one of the few rivals to my own Killough Valley in the Ozark hills over yonder.

Mrs. Taylor wrote her letter last week to the editor of the Inverness Courier, a spry twice-weekly that represents the best of newspapering in Great Britain. In her letter, Mrs. Taylor described picking up her children from the "childminder in Merkinch." On the way home, "the heavens opened and the wind began to blow in the fashion where you have to fight to keep your balance."

Her 1-year-old was in a buggy, but her 3-year-old daughter was on foot and started to cry.

"A lady walking in front of us stopped, turned to face us and started talking in a language I couldn't fathom. Next thing I know, she had picked up my toddler and walked off."

Imagine a mother's worst fears under such circumstances.

"I was begging her to put my daughter down. At which point, she took off her headscarf, wrapped it around my daughter, then opened her jacket and allowed my daughter to snuggle in."

The unknown woman smiled, saying, "No speak English."

"She walked us all the way to where I live in the Dalneigh area, a half-hour walk, carrying my very heavy toddler, singing to my children in her foreign tongue."

Mrs. Taylor was able to ascertain that the woman was from Lithuania and had a grandchild her daughter's age. When the storm-sogged group reached Mrs. Taylor's home, the woman smiled, kissed the toddler and waved bye-bye.

Here is Mrs. Taylor's conclusion based on the events of the day.

There are no foreigners, no strangers. Just friends we haven't met.

What a wonderful thought.

A few years ago, my wife and I were on a bus in Paris. As we passed interesting buildings and monuments, we tried to figure out what we were seeing. After a few minutes of guessing, an elderly woman got up and stood next to us. Thank God my wife knows enough French to exchange pleasantries, and as soon as she told the woman how beautiful Paris is, the woman launched a 20-minute travelogue -- some of which even I understood -- that showed her immense pride and her acknowledgment that we were worth her time and effort.

Then she got off the bus. We don't know who she was. We only know her as our "friend in Paris."

Perhaps she's related to a certain woman from Lithuania.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.