Goodness's Reward
There is nothing quite like the feeling of helping someone out.  In the past few year's, many of my friend's have benefited from a counselling session with me as I tend to be a person with whom people find comfort.  I am the ever patient listener and the thrill of helping someone with a problem has always been great for the soul.  However, recently I am taking that generous spirit and directing it towards greater goals.
This summer, I am helping with the food crew for the PWA (People With AIDS) Friends For Life Bike Rally at the end of July.  Last summer, I had the opportunity to videotape the ride for a documentary and after seeing the amazing community and effort of these people, I was hooked to help out.  I get to leave my jobs for six to ten days and work ten and a half hour days to feed 150 hungry bike riders on the way between Toronto and Montreal.  Okay its not exactly a summer vacation, but man you couldn't keep me from doing it.
Many people think I'm crazy for even being excited about this trip.  Why not go away and lie on a beach somewhere or visit my parents for the week in the summer?  Well besides not liking the heat of summer let alone frying on a beach and the thought of calling a week with my parents a tad short, okay a lot short, of a vacation, I could think of nothing better than giving up time to help people out.  It sure beats lying in my humid apartment for the week underneath the radiating buzz of a fan that I have to steal from my roommate when she leaves.
No, this is what I call a great trip and it really is not a new experience to me.  When I was in elementary school, my parents bought their first racehorse and over the years, I have found working with Dad and the horse an excruciating experience.  Its like trying to operate a vehicle with the air bag blowing up periodically in your face, sooner or later the airbag explodes and the likely hood of your car shooting off the side of the road becomes a reality.  So being my rebellious self, I left the horses for the glamour of the parimutual computers.  Now for anyone not familiar with parimutuals, these are the computers where people place their bets for the horseraces of the day.
I would enter the room where the computers were for about five hours and take in roughly two thousand dollars a race from people.  Betting is a serious business out west, money doesn't grow on trees.  In the last two minutes of a betting period before the race began, it was like chaos.  People shouting out bets, money flying across the counter.  It was a rush to see how many people I could put through.
The great mystery for people when they found out I rarely got paid for it, was, "Why do it then?".  Well I have to admit it may have been nice to get a little something back, but some odd reason, I was content with the hamburger and drink that was given to me for my hard work.  Oh in some towns the circuit of races would go to would pay us, but really the food and drink was enough.
For me, working like I did was just fine without the money.  I didn't have to pay for anything since my parents already drove and ate at the track for the weekend.  However, the reason why I enjoyed working long hours for nothing was simple: the sheer joy of seeing someone win one once in a while.  When you gave a little time to do this job, people were content with the fact that someone was taking care of them purely for the joy of serving.  In the years I worked on those machines, I never had a single complaint or problem with any customer.  They were just happy that you were there at all.
When I moved to Regina, I worked for Queensbury Downs and did get paid for my work, but I quit it soon after I began.  People were not nearly as nice and quite frankly, if it were not for the people, I wouldn't have bothered doing it in the first place.  For me it was those summers when people would line up to my wicket to place a bet and know that you were doing it from the heart that counted, not the wallet.
So when I see those riders who have biked over 600 kilometres across dangerous terrain through weather and nature to do some good, I figure serving them a little food along the way is worth the experience.  In my way of thinking, every little bit of good helps no matter how small the giving.  Its what it means that counts.  Summer vacation couldn't be better thought out in my books.