Annita Sawyer: Generous strangers

In 1993, while visiting our niece at Smith College, I noticed that strangers in town smiled at me as we passed. Cars stopped for pedestrians in the crosswalks! Dazzled and delighted, I fell in love with Northampton. Twenty-five years later, seeking a lively, welcoming community in which to grow old, Will and I moved to Northampton. We haven’t been disappointed.

Last Friday afternoon my change purse and credit card were no longer in the jacket pocket where I expected them to be. I knew I’d had them earlier when I paid for toothpaste and chocolate mints at Deals & Steals. I searched the whole house, but I couldn’t find them. The next morning on my way to join scores of others at First Churches to meet with U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, I looked for my purse as I walked: no luck.

Walking home afterward, feeling beset, I fretted about the precarious political situation and then about my having lost my change purse and credit card.

Leaving no stone unturned, I stopped by Deals & Steals. I asked two women behind the counter if a small black change purse might have been turned in on Friday. One pulled open a drawer under the counter. “Something like this?” She held up the black purse I was looking for. To the person who picked up my tiny change purse and brought it to the staff, thank you! Your kindness embodies the best of Northampton — generosity and goodness that still dazzles me.

Annita Sawyer

Northampton