Each year this organization of men came to the Children’s Home Society
Orphanage.
All the boys and girls would get two dollars each. The men would take
us in groups of five to downtown Jacksonville, Florida, to do some
Christmas shopping.

I remember going with this one gentleman three years in a row. He
would take us shopping, then he would ask us if we wanted to go to the
movies. I remember watching him closely when we got to the theater. I
watched him as he pulled out his wallet to pay for our tickets. He looked
over at me and just smiled with his great big smile. During the movie, he
bought us all the popcorn and candy that we wanted. I remember thinking
how wonderful it was that someone would spend their own money on someone
like us.

We all laughed at the funny movie and had a really good time. The man
would laugh really hard and then he would pat me on top of the head. Then
he would laugh really hard again and reach over and rustle my hair. I
would just look at him, and he would just keep smiling with his great big wonderful smile.
That trip to the movies was the first time in my life that I ever felt
as if someone really cared about me. It was a wonderful feeling which I
have never forgotten, even to this day, decades later.
I don’t know if that man felt sorry for me, but I do know this: If

I ever win the big lottery, that man will find out that he carried a
million-dollar smile.
This is why I believe it is so important that organizations and clubs,
such as the Shriners and Jaycees, continue to reach out and help the
children who are less fortunate. In my particular case, it was this one
man’s personal act of kindness that will be remembered for years to come.
Just one little simple act of kindness.

It is these little-tiny acts that will ensure that when some confused
a child goes off the deep end one day, he or she will forever remember that
a small glimmer of kindness that was shown to them by someone. That little
a speck of hope, that little dim light of goodness that will forever be
stuck somewhere in the far reaches of their confused mind.

I thank you, kind Sir, for a memory which I now share with my children and grandchildren fifty years later.

-Roger Dean Kiser, Sr.