There are nice people in LA!

There's a common stereotype that people in LA are more self centered and materialistic than other parts of the country. I am definitely guilty of telling people about this stereotype. However two things happened over this past week that may have changed my mind--funny enough both involved trips from LAX and cars.

On Wednesday the 27th I flew into LAX from Richmond. It had been a long day of flying only to be topped off with luggage that didn't make it onto my connecting flight from Chicago. I was hungry and tired as I climbed into Becca's red Jeep to take me home. We chatted on our way home and barely noticed that it had started to rain. As we neared my apartment Becca looked at her gas gauge and said--"Pocket (a nickname I often am called in CA) I'm almost out of gas!" I saw a gas station about 20 feet away from us and said "surely you can make it to the gas station." She said "um...I don't know." I still didn't think she was serious. The slow stop her Jeep made in the intersection convinced me she was though. We had run out of gas in the middle of Los Robles (a pretty busy road). Becca got out and attempted to push her Jeep as I steered it. [Sidenote--put your car in neutral when pushing it...oops]. We must have looked funny as she pushed the car in the pouring rain. However in less than a minute a runner saw Becca and came to help. Then a car pulled over to the side of the road and 2 guys got out and helped. Then 2 cars in the nearby gas station opened their doors and 2 more guys came to help. Pretty soon we had 6 people pushing the Jeep in the pouring rain as I steered it--this time in neutral. :) We got to the gas station in no time and filled up the tank and were good to go.

The next Saturday I set out to LAX with a youth group kid to pick up Sophie. We had an uneventful ride to the airport without much traffic. We found Sophie and another Fuller student she had found randomly run into on her plane and picked them up. As we got onto the freeway an SUV kept honking their horn and waving at me. At first I thought the people thought I was someone I wasn't. I waved back and kept driving. They kept honking. Finally I rolled down my window. A woman stuck her head out the window and said "you have a flat tire--you need to get off the freeway!" My mind immediately went to that Redbook magazine article I had read this summer while bored in the hospital. What do you do in a flat tire? Keep driving straight and get off the freeway asap. So we got off the first exit and pulled over to the first gas station we saw. None of us really knew a whole lot abut car maintenance. We tried pumping the tire with air but it was obviously not working. A car pulled up behind me in line--there was a whole family in the station wagon. Darn, I thought--they're going to want to use the air pump... As I prepared to be told to move, the father walked up to us with a car jack. He didn't speak a lot of English but said he was going to help us. He quickly figured out that the tire was flat and needed to be changed. As he tried to get the bad tire off he realized his wrench wouldn't fit a Ford... We needed to find another Ford owner and borrow their wrench. I noticed a guy was pumping gas in a Ford. We asked to borrow his wrench and next thing I knew he had pulled his car up next to mine and was helping the father change the tire. In a few minutes my spare tire was on and we were off back to Pasadena.

This is a city where people don't smile or speak when passing each other on the sidewalk. This is a city in which Crash accurately portrays a diverse city filled racism. This is a city where homeless wander the streets of the stores that the richest of rich shop at. However these two days showed something different about the city. Both days an incredibly diverse group (in age, race, ethnicity, and class) came together to help a stranger. These people knew nothing about me--and me nothing about them. Yet I was in a crisis and they showed up without hesitation. There are nice people in LA.