The enduring moments of our lives, the ones that stay with us the longest, don't necessarily make the headlines.

The other afternoon I was talking with a woman by the name of Virginia Florey. She's 80 years old; she has lived in Midland, Michigan, all her life.

She was telling me that when she was 11 years old, she and her best friend, Charlotte Fenske, would walk to school together every morning. At the corner of East Carpenter Street and Haley Street, across from a Pure Oil filling station, there was a small grocery -- Thompson's grocery store, it was called.

"We would get there at around 7:30," she told me. "It must have opened up at 7 a.m., because the grocer would always be sweeping the floor when we came in.

"Charlotte and I would have a nickel, and we would buy a candy bar to split between us every morning. We would stand there in front of the man who owned the grocery and decide which kind to buy each day -- Butterfinger, or Milky Way, or Oh Henry!, or Hershey bar. We always talked about which one we wanted to spend our five cents on. We weren't very fast about it.

"And. . . ."

Here, Virginia Florey's voice grew almost wistful as she remembered it; here, almost 70 years later, you could hear the gratitude in her tone:

"He was never impatient with us. Never once."

Think of all the world-changing events that have transpired in the years since those days when the two girls in Midland would stop in at that grocery store; think of all the events that must have occurred in their own lives.

Yet back then someone was gracious toward them -- someone didn't rush them as they debated how to spend that precious nickel each Michigan morning. And now, in 2009, she sounded still thankful at the memory of it.

There's a lesson in that. In our current era, when offhanded cruelty at times seems to be the coin of the cultural realm, it may be worth giving a little thought to the idea that the small moments of people treating us with decency and empathy can last for a very long time -- that the echoes of kindness can be as loud as the echoes of callousness.

I asked her why she thought the memory of those mornings was still so vivid.

"I don't know," she said. "But I can still see him now. He would have the broom in his hand, and sometimes the dustpan in another. He would be standing by this black metal stove in the middle of his store. He was a thin man -- he wore a white butcher's-style apron, and he was so thin that he would have wrapped the apron string around his waist a few times and tied it in the front.

"And it was just so. . .calming, I think that's the word. . .for us to go in there and know that he wasn't going to rush us."

I have a feeling there are memories like that in a lot of lives -- small and sweet memories that are strong enough to override other memories of bitterness. I recall once interviewing a woman named Atsuko Saeki, who lived in Fujisawa, Japan. She told me she had attended college in the United States; she came to the U.S. knowing no one, and there were times, she said, when she had felt nervous and utterly alone.

In a physical education class, the students played volleyball. "I was very short, compared to the other students," she told me. "I felt I wasn't doing a very good job. To be very honest, I was a lousy player."

One day, she said, when she was playing especially poorly, trying without success to set the ball up for other players, a young man on her team, sensing her discomfort, walked up to her. He whispered to her, so no one else could hear:

"You can do that."

Something so simple. But, years later, she told me:

"I have never forgotten the words. 'You can do that.' When things are not going so well, I think of those words.

"If you are the kind of person who has always been encouraged by your family or your friends or somebody else, maybe you will never understand how happy those words made me feel. Four words: 'You can do that.'"

This weekend, in the central Ohio town where I grew up, there will be a charity race through the streets in honor of Jack Roth, who was my best friend since we were 5 years old.

Jack died of cancer in 2004. We hold the race in his name each year at this time. He may have been the kindest person I have ever known. It was his defining quality; whenever he would see a little kid in a driveway trying mightily to shoot baskets, Jack would instinctively call out: "Nice shot!" Whenever he would see a child struggling to throw a baseball, he would say: "Good arm!" Seemingly small moments -- I must have seen him do it a thousand times during our lives. And every time, he made someone feel a little better.

There will be hundreds of people running in that race this weekend, and if Jack were there, I know exactly what he would be doing: standing near the finish line, applauding for the racers who are the slowest, the ones who come in near the back of the pack. Cheering them on. Telling them that they've done a good job.

"He was never impatient with us," Virginia Florey, remembering the grocer at the corner of Carpenter and Haley, said, the timbre of thankfulness in her voice. "Never once."

Seventy years later, she sounded as if the memory of such a thing still matters.

Which, of course, is why it does.


CNN contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose current book is "When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams."

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Have you experienced an act of simple kindness that has lasted a lifetime? Have you experienced what seemed like a small action at the time but has had an lasting impact on you?

Thanks for giving my Monday a good start, 2 many.

To protect someone else's privacy, I can't tell you my story, but will say that in our time of need, there were so many acts of anonymous kindness done on our behalf that it would take several lifetimes to repay them all. Not knowing who to thank, all I can do is pay it forward.

Why didn't this take off?!?

I've had a lot of people who didn't believe in me, or particularly like me. I don't blame them, I'm not particularly a nice person. But a few people have seen something that attracted them, and have reached out to me, sometimes through my own anger and attacks, to say they saw something worth while, someone interesting.

Jeff Stebner was the first. He fought hard to get inside the walls, and put up with a lot of abuse once he was inside them. He was the first person who said they liked me for something other than what I could give them, for who I was, and really knew more about me than anyone else.

I treated him poorly. I was 18, and still not 'right', but his faith, his belief, his love put me on the path to being a better person.

He moved away, we lost touch. I hope, I really do, that he's happy now.

Back in highschool, I didn't particularly like maths, but didn't particularly dislike it either. Probably an average student on that subject.
About halfway through highschool however, we hit a particularly hard subject, and I had no idea what I was doing.

When we got the big test on that subject, I remember the class was dead-silent, the only sounds were some drops of sweat from my classmates hitting their desks (as I wasn't the only one having trouble with the subject).
Halfway through, I decided to get up and hand in the paper, so I could get out of there.

So, I walked up to the teachers desk and gave him the paper...he just looked at me for a moment, then started pointing out mistakes with the tip of his pen.
He didn't write anything down, and he never said a word, he just pointed.
Then he handed me back my paper and gave a nod to get me back in my seat.

A couple of days later he had graded the papers, and I ended up with the highest mark.
From that day on maths has been my favorite subject, and I ended up in the top of my class for the rest of my school carreer.

Apparently words are not even needed to give another person confidence.

bump

I'll bite.

I once finished a final exam (I don't remember which one, I'm sure it was higher math, maybe Diff Eq) and was outside, in the cool December air, walking back to my room. It was about 11 o'clock at night, the final had started at 6:30 and went four about 4 hours.

I guess the look on my face said it all, but a random dude walking by just looked at me, and with a serious face said, "C'mon, it couldn't have been that bad."

Hahaha...I didn't say anything back, but it picked me up a little. BTW, it was that bad. I don't think I failed, but I barely passed.

My algebra teacher in High School was always so sweet and kind to me despite knowing that I had given up 100% on passing his class (failing math is one of the best things I do.) I used to have bright purple hair and he'd call me U.V. he always had Jolly Ranchers with him and always gave me a couple when I'd come into class (yes, despite knowing I was going to fail, I came in every day.)

One time I had my head down in class and was unusually quiet (surprise, I was the class clown!) so he passed me a note saying:


"Ms. G:

Y R U So Sad? :("

that instantly cheered me up, I told him I finally understood variables and he laughed. I miss him, last I heard he had prostate cancer. I certainly hope and pray that he's doing well. His name is Mr. Wydler a terribly difficult, but amazingly sweet teacher. I still have that note, every once in a while I find it in my stuff and it never fails to make me smile. 'til this day any time I see a Jolly Rancher, I think of him.

About 10 years ago when I was in jr. high I was very shy awkward girl with frizzy hair, bad acne and a slight speech impediment. I didn't think I was smart despite actually knowing the answers to most of the questions, so I rarely raised my hand because the last thing I wanted was to draw attention to myself, especially if I was wrong

My 8th grade year I had a history teacher named Mrs. G. She was older, getting ready to retire and was kind of mean and grumpy most of the time. A lot of the students didn't like her, but she was my favorite. She made history really fun and interesting. Not that I really needed help liking history, I had always found it enjoyable, but until jr.high my passion had been for science. But for my two years of jr. high I had a science teacher who ended up making me hate science in all its forms. (It's a long story and I don't want to go into it) It wasn't until I was in college did I start liking science again.

Anyway, Mrs. G. had a way of drawing me out, getting me to participate in class and making me feel as smart as all those standardized tests said I was. Well one day we had a guest speaker come in. She was some local politician. I don't remember her name, nor what office she held. What I do remember was at the end of the class we were invited to stay after and introduce ourselves to the guest and ask her any questions we may have had. (we were the last class of the day so we didn't have the excuse of trying to get to another class.) I still being painfully shy, tried to slip out before any one noticed. Well I didn't succeed. Mrs. G called me to the front of the room, my other classmates still milling about, took me by the shoulders trusted me front of the guest and said to the speaker, "You look out for this one. She's going to make a name for herself someday and make us all very proud."

I muttered something and raced out of the room as fast as I could. I was mortified. But damned if those words didn't stick with me. She was the first one I remember ever making me feel like I was worth something academically. Even now after graduating college with honors, I'm still trying to prove her right. I don't know if I ever will, but just remembering her words makes me try a little bit harder even when I know I can get by with half assing it.

I thought of another one...

When I was still going to school in Colorado, a good friend of mine asked me to take him and his girlfriend trail riding on horseback. I said yes immediately, because I especially enjoy sharing things with others when it's new or novel to them. His girlfriend is also another good friend's sister, and to top it all off, I like her too, in a purely platonic way. She's very quiet, and not too outgoing, but just as sweet as they come. We'll call her Alice.

At this time I was leasing a horse, Brown, and often taking care of another mare, Zoey. Almost every day or every other day I groomed, exercised, and rode her. And taking care of something often makes you proud of it, even when it doesn't technically belong to you.

Brown was pretty plain looking, a large (16+ hands), heavily-built grade gelding who was in fact, brown. I actually rode him on this particular day, because he was calm and mostly dependable. Unless you fell off him...At which point he would promptly return to the barn sans rider.

But Zoe was a blond-looking horse (technically a roan) with plenty of chrome (white markings), about 15 hands and just well built. She also possessed a much more active and high strung disposition.

I thought she was a great looking horse, and I liked her personality quite a bit, even though she had a few annoying tendencies. Just made her a little more fun for the most part.

Now I had taken friends out to the stables before; mostly just when we'd been out and about and wanted to kill more time before returning to campus. But out of several people I took out there, hardly anyone ever commented on Zoey's looks, which I thought was just crazy and a little frustrating, even though she wasn't even my horse.

Maybe a couple of people had said, "Pretty" or something noncommittal like that, but it wasn't what I was looking for. Let's be honest, almost anytime you take someone to look at a horse they'll say, "Pretty horse".

But when I took Alice out to the stable, she reached towards Zoey, and while touching her nose said, "She's beautimous."

It was a nonsense word, and a simple gesture, but one I had been looking for for a while. Kind of validated my work in taking care of her I guess.