This week’s column is a little different than what we have covered in the past.

With so much negative in our lives, it seems that many folks seek out only the bad things. The condition our country is in has made many of our fellow citizens go into a depression that fills their lives daily. We awake feeling down, and throughout the day feel like no one cares anymore about one another. Many still live in a dream of what happened in their lives many years ago, unable to lay down those old pains of yesterday. The political climate has turned so mean that I have begun to watch other TV channels just to get away from it all.

I want to share what happened to me on a recent Thursday morning. I got up at my regular time of 5 a.m., put the coffee in the pot and turned it on, and in no time I could smell the sweet aroma of the coffee coming into the den, where I was watching the news.

I received a phone call at 5:30 a.m., and it was a friend inviting me to breakfast. He told me to meet him at the Fort Oglethorpe Hardee’s on Battlefield Parkway. I jumped into the shower, then kissed my wife goodbye as I went out the door. As I traveled down Battlefield Parkway, I was shaving with my electric shaver. As I pulled into the parking lot, there were not many people out this time of morning, so the parking lot was just about empty. I went inside and met my friends, and after the normal greetings, I went over and placed my order of biscuits and gravy, an egg biscuit and coffee. I gathered my food up and sat down and had a good conversation with my friends, generally about what they wanted to accomplish at work.

As I talked with my friends, I noticed to my right this one, lone, bright red tomato. I could not help but wonder just who had left the business and had forgotten this scrumptious-looking tomato.

I had noticed a couple of gentlemen were sitting across from us, and one of the men had evidently noticed me eyeing this prize left on the table and smiled just a little. Well, it was time to get going; my friends had left the building, and I was a little slower leaving. As I was putting my tray where it belonged, this gentleman was still smiling at me in a friendly way, and I said to him: “Hello, how are you doing this morning?”

I had noticed by now a basket full of fresh home-grown tomatoes sitting on his table. As he spoke to me he said, “Here, would you like a fresh tomato?”

One of his friends who was talking to someone else across the room grew these in his garden at home and likes to share them with whoever he meets. I gladly accepted the tomato and thanked him for his kindness. As I was leaving, he gave me another tomato as I went out the door.

I don’t know about you, but this stranger made my day much brighter by his simple act of kindness. I got in my truck, and before I left, I put the tomatoes up to my nose and could smell the freshness in them.

Where else but in the Ringgold-Fort Oglethorpe area could this be happening?

I do love my hometown.

Roger Sherrill lives in Ringgold. He can be reached at tandemjumper@catt.com.