Lady, you just made my day

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Lady, you just made my day

A nagging albeit minor plumbing issue on our 46-year-old Canadian-made sailboat, Tranquilo, sent me to Mitchell’s Hardware in downtown New Bern. It’s one of those throwback hardware stores, brass doorknobs, endless bins of screws and washers and plumbing fittings, creaky hardwood floors and friendly employees to help you locate what you need. The woman who rang me up told me to have a good day and then asked where I was from.

“The mountains,” I told her.

“My son went to school there, Haywood Community College. We love the mountains” she replied.

My curiosity was piqued, especially since I’ve spent nine years on the HCC Foundation Board. Because of that service and through the 33 years I’ve spent in Haywood County, the college holds a special place in my heart. HCC is a unique institution, and its employees, students, graduates and supporters are a family of sorts.

“What program was he in?” I asked.

That opened the floodgates.

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“Wildlife Management, and he loved it. Now he is the disaster management director at Croatan National Forest. And it’s all because of the experience he got and the connections the made at HCC,” she said. “That’s why I’m here in New Bern, to be close to him.”

The foundation supports many programs at the school, but I wanted to find out if somehow the work I’ve helped support as a member of that board had perhaps helped this young man, this woman’s son. And I suspected the connection was about to be made.

“Did he participate in the timbersports team?” I asked.

“Oh my God, he loved it. They competed against great big schools and beat them,” she gushed. “Crazy that a small community college does that.”

Crazy, but I know that story well, as do many who live where we live. The HCC Timbersports team, the Lumberjacks, are among the best in the nation, every year. I couldn’t help it. I beamed with a broad smile. The foundation has given that group lots of support, including helping build its practice facility.

Here I was, about as far away from Haywood County as one could be and still be in North Carolina and this young man whom I’ve never met was direct beneficiary of the work done by our foundation board.

I’ll admit it: often I see those dates marked on my calendar and think about how much real work I could get done if I didn’t have to attend that meeting. But at some point during almost of those meetings, I sit back and feel pretty good about what I get to do, to help in some small way to provide a variety of opportunities to young people just getting started in life, for instructors to get better at what they do.

Many years ago, I was one of those kids. I was fortunate enough to earn a scholarship to Appalachian State when my parents could in no way have paid for my university education. I learned so much about hard work and discipline while there, because I had to make “A’s” to keep that scholarship. I was invited to a dinner hosted by the foundation board at ASU, and I remember being uncomfortable and nervous stuffed into the only suit I had, all those old people on the board smiling as we talked about our backgrounds and such.

And now I’m one of those old people, the one smiling when students come to our HCC Foundation meetings and tell us about how a scholarship, money for traveling abroad, or helping with living expenses are an inspiration to them as they navigate their way through college and early adulthood.

I had my hand on the old brass doorknob of that hardware store, the mother of that HCC grad finishing her story. I told her about my connection to HCC, and she just smiled.

But her smile was nowhere near as big as mine.

“You just made my day,” I told her. I twisted that old brass doorknob and walked across to my truck with a renewed enthusiasm about, well, everything. Even that damned plumbing problem couldn’t dampen my mood or wipe the smile off my face.

(Scott McLeod can reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

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