There are still giving people among us these days

Posted Jul 4, 2010 by Tom McEwen

Updated Jul 4, 2010 at 12:09 AM

There are some good guys still around. The world is not full of oafs.

There are still some Samaritans, some who will stop and help strangers.

Thank goodness.

Wife Linda and I found that out early this week, during the early evening when that mighty thunderstorm that flooded much of Tampa, notably our Davis Islands, inundating this great place in which we live in a brief time like none before, outside of hurricanes.

We had finished dinner at Bella’s on South Howard, during which the storms struck.

When we left in our older automobile, we had to weave our way through south Tampa to find our way home, avoiding the flood waters. When we got to the island, Davis Boulevard and West Davis Boulevard were flooded. With Linda driving, which she does now and does quite well, we picked our way through the water around the east side to the apex of East Davis at Peter O’Knight Airport. There, we found the floodwaters very high and some cars stalled.

Without water entering the inside of the car, we stalled out in the center. I put a call in to our son, Ricky, who also lives on the island, but in the meantime, this good Samaritan, Thomas Stafford, a husky young man in his early 30s and in an SUV, stopped, came to our window, wading through the water and asking if we had a problem. He said he had a strong cord and would pull us out.

Lord, were we glad to see him. He attached his cord to the front of our car, and pulled us west out of the deep water to West Davis. He got out of his SUV and said he would push us home. As he began, Ricky called, and we told him to meet us at our house in his SUV.

He did that without mishap. We never got water in our automobile and we never left it until we arrived home. I now have one good leg and one eye, and I was in a fix and we needed all of the help we could get. This Samaritan fulfilled our recovery without mishap. It had stopped raining by then.

Thomas Stafford said he was from Clearwater, a sailor who had been at the Davis Island Yacht Club for the Thursday afternoon sailing exercises. He said he could tell that we were in trouble and wanted to help and had the equipment to do so. He also said he is an associate with New York Life Insurance and a longtime sailor. We, of course, will be in touch with him and in some way properly try to thank him for his generosity.

It was truly a good, unexpected, move by a stranger for those in a time of distress. Thank Heaven there are still good Samaritans such as Stafford among us in these times when some of us may have wondered if there still were. Linda and I can tell you there is. How about good tickets to a major sporting event in Tampa? He would like that.

By the time this adventure had ended, the moon and the stars were out, the rain had stopped, floodwaters had abated, and most was right with the world around Davis Island again.