George lives a mile and a half from our house, in an old, sunken rental house so close to the road passersby could toss things inside left-handed. Often the front door stands open, with George standing in it, or on the shoulder of the road. He is likely a veteran, with a long gray ponytail and stringy beard. Hallucinations and delusions are his constant companions. Behind his house, on the shores of his septic lagoon, he built a small wickiup with poles and lumber wrap under which at times he sits shirtless, smoking. Most days he spends making his rounds of the local dumpsters and hauling his finds home to his yard where he piles it in sprawling windrows. My children call him Crazy George. I do not like it, naming him Crazy, but I understand the sentiment. 

Today George is ahead of me at the grocery store checkout. Dollar thirty-nine, says the cashier. His item is bagged, and he is in a protracted struggle with his wallet. The wallet is a frayed, green nylon tri-fold, with an eye-catching sun orange card in its front slot. The card is too garish, too loud, too unlike the matte blacks and silvers of Mastercard and Visa. But if not a credit card, what is it? A membership card? VFW? A calling card? His heavy slow fingers are moving behind the card and he pulls out a dollar, and then another. The cashier chimes open the register and slides a practiced finger into the change tray. 

But George is leaning across the counter, his beard sweeping the credit card reader. He has something to say. The cashier pauses. We all listen silently, waiting. 

“Keep it for the other people.”

The cashier closes the drawer. “Thank you, George,” she says softly. She is moved. 

The other people. What other people? I look around at the handful of customers waiting. If our combined assets were liquidated we could throw down an easy two or three million on the conveyer. I don’t know if George would be left with five hundred after rent. 

I shift uneasily. I always keep the rest of it for myself. The other people can work for their money same as I do. When asked by cashiers if I’d like to donate the rest of it to the St. Judes Children’s Hospital my answer is always a brusque negative, with what may be a poorly concealed edge of irritation. I will not be nickel and dimed out of my money by schemes angling to set off an impulse give. How is that good stewardship, frittering away change whenever some clever racketeer ambushes you with loose coin in your hand?

But George had no such stewardship compunctions. The other people could have his change. 

Real change seldom follows determined resolutions, big decisions or binding vows. Real change is simply something you never forget. Something you cannot unsee or unhear, an image, a phrase that gives you pause and finds a home in you. 

Its been a year or two now, and without ever having made a decision, without determination or resolve, I find I don’t say no anymore. When asked at the counter if I’d like to round up my purchase for Bottles for Babies or the Leukemia Initiative I say sure, of course. For the other people. For George.