This weekend, the wife had to make a quick trip to Walmart for some stuff we needed and ended up calling me from the parking lot in tears. Not anything too abnormal (the trip to Walmart, not the tears), really, Walmart is relatively close and us not having a required item for something we are making happens more than I’d like to admit. Like most, a trip from our house to Walmart for a single item never ends that way. So, as the wife was moving stealthily through the store, a man, Bob from Wilmington, noticed her Cubs sweatshirt, and it sparked a conversation. As a boy, he grew up in Chicago, and like many others, that ignited a lifelong devotion to a team that hasn’t exactly been at the pinnacle of success. Perpetually in a rebuild, there is always next year, hope is eternal, but at least we have 2016. For those of you who do not know, I am a bit obsessive about my Cub fandom, and I have dragged the whole family into that obsession. Whether they wanted to or not. Anyway, I do not know all the details of their conversation, but it was a good one with a lot of reminiscing and nostalgia for a time long ago. If that is where the story ended, my wife would have already been moved by the genuineness of the conversation. But as she was checking out, Bob rushed over and paid for all the items in our cart. I have ‘seen’ or heard of stories like this happening to others, but this is the first time we have been on the receiving end of something like this. This is a long story, to let you know that there is good in this world, and it is on us to keep it that way by doing our part. So, to Bob from Wilmington, thank you. Now it is our turn to pay it forward.
Typically, Lunch Box Quotes are notes I include in the kids’ lunches every day. Number 1 gets a text, but 2-4 get a handwritten napkin. But this week, with finals for the High School, everything is wonky. Some days they are in school, some days they get out early. Every day is different.
Visual credits to: @visegrad24 @CowboyGospeler @Pergament_F @Gentleman_Ways @BeSaintly
Quotes:
1. “A Communist system can be recognized by the fact that it spares the criminals and criminalizes the political opponent.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
2. “A horse don’t buck for fun; he’s fighting for what he believes is his freedom.” – Will James (1926)
3. “I was happy not because of any particular book, but because I was surrounded by books.” – Marcel Proust
4. “I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.” – Henry David Thoreau
Bonus Quote: “There are three traps of Satan that steal joy and peace: Regretting about the past, fear for the future, and ingratitude for the present.” – Saint Anthony the Great
Sources:
“A Communist system can be recognized by the fact that it spares the criminals and criminalizes the political opponent.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn pic.twitter.com/agoWLiEZqK
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 12, 2025
A horse don’t buck for fun; he’s fighting for what he believes is his freedom.
⏤Will James (1926) pic.twitter.com/WsR23Mmv9U— Cowboy Gospeler (@CowboyGospeler) December 11, 2025
“I was happy not because of any particular book, but because I was surrounded by books.”
Marcel ProustGood night pic.twitter.com/k2W8mcrwzC
— Sophia Proneikos (@Pergament_F) December 12, 2025
— Become A Saint (@BeSaintly) December 12, 2025
“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.”
-Henry David Thoreau pic.twitter.com/0yVMsKBt3m
— The Ways of A Gentleman (@Gentleman_Ways) November 26, 2025