Lessons from Mainstream America

A chance encounter with an honest man and a contrast with the "elites" in our nation's capital

Remember this guy?

This post is a counterpoint to my post of August 24, “Hating the U. S.”. That post featured, among other things, a red-shirted young fool who was participating in the pro-Hamas demonstrations. He had come armed with a container of flammable liquid, the better to burn a government-owned US flag.

Here he is again:

Credit: Reuters

As I said at the time,

We saw a crowd that included what appeared to be many spoiled college-aged students, burning our flag and calling for bloody terrorism and murder – because that’s what an Intifada is – here in our country.

* * * *

As you can see, the fool in the red shirt with the keffiyeh wrapped around his hips appears to be a young Caucasian, college-age male, maybe even a member of a fraternity. He is a nobody, but his burning of our flag is a desecration. We do not know who he is, but he clearly is identifiable. The U.S. flag he is burning is government property that was hauled down from the flagpole to be desecrated and replaced with a Palestinian flag. He clearly came prepared to burn the flag, as he is carrying a container of flammable liquid that he is squirting onto the burning flag.

In the meantime, a chance encounter in the Shenandoah Valley

I met red-shirt-fool’s opposite number on a little-used country road in western Virginia. Our brief encounter gave me renewed hope that outside our Marxist-dominated enclaves, there are still millions of honest and patriotic Americans. I don’t know the man I met very well — I really know very little about him. But from a brief encounter that lasted only a few minutes, I know that he is an honest man, and I can deduce more.

Here is the story: Last Friday, I was part of a cycling group. Tim, the group leader had organized a ride in the southern Shenandoah Valley, starting in Middlebrook, Virginia.

I elected to do a longer ride than the rest of the group, and quickly found myself riding solo through the gentle hills of the beautiful countryside. It is a very rural area, and I encountered very little traffic, typically only one or two vehicles every 10 miles or so.

As I was on the final stretch of my ride, I was peddling along Middlebrook Road as fast as my legs would allow, looking forward to getting a cool drink at the Middlebrook General Store where we had started.

I noticed a car coming toward me, slowing down as the gap between us closed. The driver had his window down and shouted something as we passed each other. Now, cyclists will appreciate that sometimes encounters with drivers are not entirely friendly, given the number who think that bicyclists have no business on “their” roads. So, I had been prepared for something hostile, maybe a shouted epithet or even a thrown beer bottle. But contrary to my fears, the driver sounded friendly. Although I could not understand what he was saying, he appeared to be asking a question. I shouted back that I could not hear him and kept peddling for a short distance.

As I looked back, I saw that the driver had pulled into a side road and was turning around. So, I pulled over to the shoulder of the road and waited for him to come back so that I could see what his question was. Maybe he needed directions?

Before turning around, the driver had a short conversation with a driver of a pickup truck, which then turned to follow him in my direction. He pulled up next to me, window still down, and came to a stop. He asked if I was part of a larger biking group. I told him that I was, even though I was solo by then. He then explained that some members of the group had pulled off the road at its intersection with his driveway and that after they had ridden away, he found a wallet in his driveway. He was trying to locate the owner.

After a short discussion, I asked him if he had looked inside the wallet to try to identify the owner. He had and it apparently belonged to Tim, who had organized our ride.

I confirmed that the owner was a member of our group. I knew that he probably would be reluctant to turn over the wallet to a stranger who promised to get it to Tim, so I told him that if he would give me his contact information, I would get the information to Tim. He agreed and I gave him my cell phone number so that he could text me his name and contact information, which he did.

Incidentally, during the entirety of our conversation, which lasted perhaps two or three minutes, the pickup truck was stopped behind us, while its driver patiently waited for us to finish our conversation. No honking, no shouting, no attempt to pass us on a narrow country road. The driver knew what we were discussing and was content to sit and wait for us to finish. Can anyone picture that happening in, say, our nation’s capital? No . . . . Too many people in a rush to do so many important things.

The ultimate result was that I was able to contact Tim and give him the young man’s contact information so that he could retrieve his wallet.

What conclusions should I draw from this small encounter? What does it tell me about the driver who stopped to ask me about the wallet? From our brief interaction, I know that he is an honest man. He found a wallet containing cash and credit cards and set out to find the owner. He took his time to drive up and down Middlebrook Road— and probably other roads as well — looking for a group of cyclists so that he could return the wallet to its owner.

Joe Crawford

I also decided that this unknown young man’s honesty, which he doubtlessly regarded as routine, should be recognized. So, I wish to publicly recognize Joe Crawford as the honest man who took the time to drive rural Virginia roads to search for the wallet’s owner.

This was a small incident that never would be noticed by anyone else, and likely would never be known to anyone other than Joe and me. Nevertheless, it says a lot about mainstream America and the values to which most Americans cling. Chief among them is honesty.

I think that it also is safe to conclude that Joe adheres to other values that many of us respect. He cares about other people and wants to help them when he can. He is willing to make personal sacrifices to do that. He is a patriot.

I asked Joe for permission to use his name, and he kindly agreed. When I asked him why he was “motivated to drive up and down the road, looking for the owner,” he simply said: “I’m an honest person and would hope someone would do the same for me.”

You may draw your own conclusions about Joe Crawford from this short description of our brief, random encounter. But I will take him every time over the young, red-shirted young nihilist thug who wanted to be seen while burning out nation’s flag in D. C. To paraphrase the “Battalion Orders” issued in 1820 by the West Point Commandant, then-Brevet Major William Jenkins Worth, ‘One is to be venerated and emulated, the other despised as a satire upon duty and honor.’

William Jenkins Worth as a Brevet Major General Photo by Matthew Brady from Wikipedia