I briefly considered skipping the ‘good people’ post this morning, for my energy seems to have flown the coop and I just really want to go to bed.  But then … I saw a post from our friend Bee Halton and something about it looked familiar.  The light bulb in my head came on!!!  I wrote about these people!  So, I searched my archive and sure enough … I wrote about them in 2018, a quirk of fate brought them together, and today, they still spend every Thanksgiving together!  So, I decided to redux my original post with an update from Bee’s!  This is truly one of the most heartwarming stories …

From my 2018 post titled Saturday Surprise — A Nice Story And A Cute Video …

Every now and then it happens that Saturday Surprise collides with Wednesday’s Good People and the result is … awesome, heartwarming and fun!  Today is one of those times!

The story begins at Thanksgiving 2016, when Wanda Dench made a text-a-boo-boo … or an erroneous text sent to the wrong person.  The story is told in the following text messages … the recipients of the original text inadvertently included Jamal Hinton, a complete stranger …

And so it happened that 17-year-old Jamal went over the river and through the woods to grandma’s house for dinner! Since the heartwarming story first broke Dench has named Hinton as her ‘honorary grandson,’ which is quite fitting.  The two stayed in touch, and last year, he was invited back for Thanksgiving 2017.   In an interview with the Arizona Republic last year Dench said, “It was really nice having everybody here, we got to laugh about last year and reminisce about how it all blew up on our phone and how I had to change my number. We had a laugh and a good time.”

The two have stayed in touch, and ‘Grandma’ Wanda even sent Jamal a couple of gift cards at Christmas last year.  And this year … well of course Jamal was invited back and his girlfriend too!

Hinton finds the dinners and his newfound family meaningful. “The world is becoming a better place than it used to be. With all the Donald Trump going on and all the racial comments going on, it’s kind of good to see there’s still good people out there.” Dench gave her new ‘grandson’ an open invitation for all future Thanksgivings at her house, so this is a tradition likely to live on for a lifetime.

A small thing?  Perhaps, but … seems to me that a whole lot of these “small things” add up to a whole lot of good in the world, a whole lot of heart, a whole lot of love.

Okay, so that was nice and heartwarming, but the holiday season has now officially kicked off and I think we need to start the weekend with something funny, don’t you?  So, you know what that means … a funny animal video!!!  I considered taking the cute animal video out for this reprised post, but thought, what the heck … we can all use a bit of a smile anyway, right?

Have a great weekend, folks, and don’t let the crowds crush you if you go shopping!  I went shopping from the comfort of my own chair, in my jammies, while sipping coffee last night!  Keep warm & safe!

And the update from Bee’s Good News Tuesday:  I Absolutely Love This Story!  Thank you, Sweet Bee!!!