Wow! Did you see the news report about Meghan Vogel, the 17-year-old high school student who helped a struggling competitor finish their high school race? When Mehgan saw competitor Arden McMath faltering in a 3,200 meter race, Meghan helped McMath across the finish line, giving up all chance of finishing strong.
“I just thought I was doing the right thing,” Meghan was quoted as saying.
What an incredible young woman! Sam and I would like to shake her hand, hug her for her wonderful act of humanity, buy her a soda, whatever. She should be given our nation’s highest citizen award. Her parents ought to be busting with pride. How amazing is Meghan Vogel?
The kindness Meghan displayed is not totally rare (though it’s rare enough) but it seems like we don’t hear about kindness as much as we hear about murder, mayhem and political squabbling. There are so many murders occurring in the Seattle area right now that reports of somebody dying of gunshot wounds, stabbing, choking, beating, etc. appears in our news every day. As if that’s not bad enough, we also hear almost daily reports of some guy trying to lure a young girl or boy into a vehicle or nearby bushes. Sam and I constantly are reminded of movies where lions prowl the perimeter of a Serengeti watering hole looking for a weak animal to devour.
Then there’s all the political unrest in the world, especially in the Middle East. Mark our words now, hard-core Islamic fundamentalist extremists will soon control most of the Middle East and someday we will almost fondly remember having to deal only with the Taliban and Al Queda. In Russia, their parliament is acting to severely restrain public demonstrations of dissent. And as if we didn’t already have enough problems dealing with China, now that country is insisting that we quit pointing out to the rest of the world how dirty and polluted China’s air is.
It’s enough to make you pull your hair out or just curl up into a little ball and suck your thumb.
One last item in the news that Sam and I can’t help but remark on and that’s the report by Associated Press writer Jeri Clausing, that horses by the thousands are dying because of the high price of hay and veterinarian bills and lack of water. A lot of horse owners are just abandoning their animals because in these harsh economic times they supposedly can no longer afford to take care of their once faithful companions. Now, opening up new slaughterhouses to put the poor animals out of their miseries, is being proposed as a solution to this nag-ging problem.
I hope, if it ever came down to it and I fell on really hard times, that I - like Meghan Vogel - would consider Sam more important than myself and make the ultimate sacrifice for him. He is such a great little companion I don’t think I can ever do enough to repay him for the joy he has brought to my life. He might be a little spoiled but he trusts me. How could I ever violate that trust by sending him to a slaughter house or the pound? Three bags of poop on that!
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