Letters to the editor
A quiet kindness
I recently experienced a level of kindness from a stranger that stayed with me.
While visiting a garden center for help with a fencing issue, I was assisted by an employee who took real time and care to help me resolve it. He spent about 20 minutes making sure the problem was fully resolved, going to different parts of the store as needed. He even carried the item to my truck without hesitation. His words were simple but stayed with me: “I want you to leave happy.”
After this visit, I was planning to stop at a craft store to look for a small bird for a garden project.
During our interaction, he pulled down a basket of fencing parts from a high shelf. As he set it down, he casually noticed a small broken metal bird inside and said, “Oh, look, there’s a bird in here,” before placing the basket back and stepping away to get pliers so he could continue assisting me.
In that moment, I remember thinking: is this a case of serendipity? Seeing a bird already sitting in a basket of regular store merchandise, clearly out of place and unexpected, felt like a strange coincidence given what I was about to look for later.
When I asked if it could be sold at a discount, he said I could just take it. I did, and I was grateful.
He also shared a bit about his work in passing while helping me, which made the interaction feel even more genuine and grounded in customer service. I was unexpectedly overwhelmed and had to pull over afterward. I found myself crying, not out of sadness, but because the kindness, timing, and sincerity of the moment affected me more deeply than I anticipated.
In everyday life, it is common to encounter impatience, frustration, or rushed solutions when asking for help. That contrast is part of what made this experience stand out so much more.
There was nothing extraordinary in the sense of spectacle, but his kindness felt rare, unforced, and real.
In a time when people often feel disconnected, this interaction was a quiet reminder that genuine kindness still exists, and it can stay with someone long after the moment has passed.
Lisa Scherer
Marianna
A matter of semantics
When I read “Supreme Court sides with anti-abortion center” (April 30), I wondered why the headline and article used “anti-abortion center” instead of “pro-life center?” I can’t recall ever reading in your newspaper an article about those supporting abortion being identified as “anti-life?” Please correct if I’m wrong.
If those advocating for abortion can be labeled “pro-choice,” why can’t those opposing it be called “pro-life?” Indeed, the latter also could be identified as “pro-choice,” because they are providing resources for pregnant women to have a real choice.
Here’s the choice: preserve or terminate a baby who has a beating heart as early as 18 days after fertilization, brain waves at 6 weeks, organ systems in place at 10 to 11 weeks, begins to move at 12 weeks, hears his mother’s voice at 20 weeks, is viable outside the womb at 23 weeks.
How tragic that we protect the eggs of eagles but not humans in the womb!
Rick Kauffman
Canonsburg
Oppose the mergers
Are you ready to pay even more for your TV programming? The proposed Paramount-Warner merger will do just that.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce estimates 30% to 50% higher channel costs and increased monthly cable bills after mergers.
What can you do? Contact Pennsylvania Attorney General David Sunday and ask that he support litigation to block the Paramount-Warner merger. On April 30, Sunday joined litigation that would stop another giant media merger, Nexstar and TEGNA. And, support your local news outlets.
Laura Dunn
Washington
All you need to know
In January 2016, Trump announced, for no particular reason, he thought he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and he wouldn’t lose any voters. Why would a person think about that?
When elected the second time, Trump eliminated USAID, closing, without warning, our health programs in Africa and elsewhere. The deaths from that decision continue to mount. His quota-driven, rather than case-driven, approach to immigrant elimination, (except for white South Africans and the super rich, of course) has caused over a hundred deaths and thousands of families ripped apart. His delight in blowing up speedboats killed over a hundred Argentinians, and, maybe a few drug dealers. We’ll never know. Supposedly, around 40 people were killed by the operation that seized Argentina’s president. Starting the war with Iran has already killed thousands, including Americans. And, he keeps threatening to completely destroy Iran, a nation of 93 million, which would mean causing more deaths than World War II. Republicans claim he’s just kidding, which tells you all you need to know about Republican humor.
And, they claim he is in some way like Jesus Christ! The record says Trump is more like a fool’s-gold-plated angel of death.
Rev. Gerard Weiss
Upper St. Clair