Note from Peggy: I asked my readers to submit nominations for my first annual Civility Star Award. I was impressed with the flood of responses and wanted to share three nominations in particular. Here is the second.
Dear Peggy,
Peter Joyce is very civil and kind. He gets that from his mother, who would give you the shirt off her back—in fact, they both would.
Peter believes in treating people in a kind way with integrity and respect. He always says hello to everyone, including the bus driver, taxi driver, customer service people, etc. He’ll call them sir or ma’am and he treats everyone fairly. Everyone is just as important to Peter, whether it’s the girl at Starbucks or the CEO of a company. I remember the folks at the Starbucks in his building in Atlanta used to give him a Christmas gift every year and I’m sure it was just for him being nice.
If a homeless person asks him for money he won’t give it. He will, however, offer to take them to the nearest restaurant and buy them a meal. He’s even gone as far as sitting with them while they eat because there have been times that the restaurants would prefer the homeless person to leave and not eat their food there. He feels that despite their hard luck they should still be treated with dignity.
He won’t loan anyone money but will give them money without any expectation in return. Many of us may say we like to do the same thing but in the back of our minds we always think “I wasn’t paid back” or “they never thanked me.” With Peter it’s out of his mind and he never thinks of it again.
When my aging mother’s funds were getting low it was never a question of how we could help. For Peter it was just something we had to do, with no question of should we, would we, or could we. For Peter these things don’t require thought. We do them and that’s that.
I’m very fortunate to have met him. I enjoy wearing the many shirts he’s given me … right off his back.
Tim Jenkins
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