The Whole Bunch

By Janice Lane Palko

Did you watch any of the FIFA World Cup coverage, specifically the visitors who extolled the American culture? Scads of posts from people from all over the world praising our food, scenery, vastness, abundance, kindness, generosity, and hospitality, appeared all over the various social media platforms. 

Recently, I’ve witnessed two such instances of that.

A couple of weeks ago, I was heading into a grocery store, when a young woman with a brace on her leg while pushing a cart out of the store, lost her balance and face-planted on the sidewalk. I and two other women immediately came to her aid, to ask if she had been hurt. She said no, which was a relief, but with the brace, she was having difficulty getting up from the sidewalk. We tried to assist her, but she was too heavy for us. A man of about 80 came over, but he looked a bit unstable himself. Right then several younger men, exiting the store stepped up and helped her to her feet.  

The second occurred back in March. We had new carpeting installed in our family room. When the installers came, I headed upstairs with the dog, while my husband stayed downstairs to direct them where to move some of the furniture so that they could get to work. 

A few minutes later, my husband came into our bedroom and said, “The installers found the wallet.” I was puzzled because I hadn’t lost a wallet. “They found Jordan’s wallet,” he said.  My son-in-law lost his wallet at Christmas four years ago. He had just withdrawn some cash out of the bank and lost his wallet. He assumed he had lost it when he had stopped to get gas. But apparently, it had fallen into our recliner, when they came to visit. The recliner is very heavy, and when the installers moved it, the wallet fell out. 

My husband wasn’t in the room when the installers found it, so they could have easily pocketed the $400 that was still tucked in there, and we would have never known. But to their credit, they did the admirable thing and gave us the wallet and money. 

According to the Cicero Institute, a non-partisan public policy institute, a very small minority commit the majority of the crime in the United Stated. Some studies show that less than 5 percent of the population commit 63% of violent crime, and when you add in property crimes that jumps to 90% of all reported crimes. 

Back in 1971, my teen crush Donny Osmond and his brothers had a hit song, called “One Bad Apple,” whose lyrics advised that, “One Bad Apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl.”

When you doomscroll and watch the news, it’s easy to believe that everyone is evil, self-seeking, and nefarious. But as the statistics show and our World Cup visitors have reminded us, and the numerous acts of kindness and virtue that go unnoticed, the whole bunch of us have not been spoiled by the few bad apples in our midst.