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Ask HN: What is the nicest thing you have ever done?

5 pointsby sw1205almost 14 years ago
I was chatting to a friend the other day who told me the most unbelievable story.<p>To cut a long story short he told me how he met a person at the airport who was grief stricken - his mum had just been in a major accident and he had to get home from Barcelona airport to his home in Oxford. His dad had already died and he had no other family to speak of.<p>This man also had no money.<p>He was at the airport pleading with them to give him a flight for free so he could get home to see his mum, maybe for the last time. My friend over heard what was going and offered to buy his flight. The man accepted this gracious offer and my friend got talking to him on the journey home and tried to allay his worst fears.<p>The two of them landed at Gatwick together and as if my friend had not done enough, he then drove this man to the hospital in Oxford where his mum was. They swapped numbers and 2 weeks later my friend got a phonecall - the mother had survived and was expceted to make a full recovery. The man (Paul) and my friend (Mitch) met yesterday in London for a drink - I am confident they will become lifetime friends.<p>This was the same day as when all the newspapers were filled with the henious scenes of the London riots and the awful acts that man was doing to its fellow man.<p>I get annoyed reading nothing but bad news. That got me thinking - why don't I create a monthly online newspaper. A monthly online newspaper that only cotains good news stories and shows the great in people and the great things they do.<p>So I am asking you to contribute to the first edition! What is the nicest thing you have done?<p>Thanks!

2 comments

opendomainalmost 14 years ago
I have often picked up hitchhikers or helped people on the road when their car was broken down. I also spent quite a bit of time mentoring people in some of my skills, but that actually also helped me become better myself in those fields. Probably the best way to help people was my Open Source project: OpenDomain. We give domains to groups for Free to support open source, such as Drupal.Com, Oscon.com, FosDem.Org, and OpenAjax.Org Unfortunately, I have also seen the other side: I have given money to people with a similar sorry as yours, only to find out they we just scamming me. And I have helped people for more than 12 years with OpenDomain, only for Google to steal my domain <a href="http://Schema.Org" rel="nofollow">http://Schema.Org</a>
adaml_623almost 14 years ago
That's a lovely story. I think you should go to Reddit to find more stories.