A random act of kindness from a Newcastle-based bloke has won a host of admirers on social media.
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Tyson Crawley, a 30-year-old carpenter from Albury, was on his way to work when he stopped at a petrol station to fill up his ute and jerry can.
Tyson was preparing to pay the $110 bill, which included a couple of iced coffees.
Problem was he forgot his bank card. He went to use another card, but forgot its pin number.
“After searching through my iPhone bank app to figure out how to reset my pin, I had failed,” Tyson said on Facebook.
“My dog was barking wildly, I had to get to work and I was starting to freak.”
A stranger stepped forward, saying “do you need some money?”.
Tyson replied: “No, no, no, please! It's OK. I have the money, I just can't remember my pin!”
The stranger said: “It’s fine”.
“I wasn't quite sure what he meant, but he walked around me towards the register,” Tyson said.
When he realised that the stranger was offering to pay his bill, Tyson resisted.
The stranger said: “It's a free country isn't it? I can help a brother out, can't I?”
Tyson was stunned.
“He continually convinced me it was OK. After I ran out of options, I ever so gratefully accepted,” he said.
Tyson asked him for his phone number, so he could pay him back.
The stranger wrote something on a receipt, folded it and handed it to Tyson.
“He then left and said ‘have a good day’,” Tyson said.
The attendant then said: “Well that doesn't happen every day”.
Soon after, Tyson opened the receipt. The stranger had signed his name simply as “John”, while adding “pass it on”.
Which, of course, is another version of “pay it forward”.
Social media being what it is, the stranger was soon identified as John Kennedy Jr, who plays for Newcastle North Stars ice hockey team.
Before the pair parted ways, Tyson took a selfie of himself with John.
At the end of his Facebook post, Tyson wrote: “It's not about keeping up with the Joneses, having the biggest house, most expensive car, the largest bank account, but working with each other”.
Newcastle North Stars posted this on its Facebook page on Monday: “We're not surprised that our champion defenceman John Kennedy Jr was generous enough to pay this man's $109 fuel bill while travelling last week, as we know his quality of character”.
“We're proud you're one of our North Stars community, JFK!”
Cooee, Cooee
Topics recently wrote about a cooee competition that was at Stockton RSL on Sunday.
Bush poet Bob Skelton, known as The Minmi Magster, was the judge.
Bob told Topics that the winner was Gosforth’s Debra Nott.
“It turned out she was a former opera singer,” Bob said.
As we reported previously, the Magster laid claim to being the “cooee champion of the Hunter Valley”.
He won the title about 20 years ago at Toronto and had vowed to pass on the trophy to the winner of the Stockton cooee competition. But it didn’t quite work out that way.
“When we crossed the Stocko Bridge, I realised I’d left the bloody trophy behind and never had time to go back and get it,” the Magster said.
Topics suspects the Magster might have been reluctant to part ways with his adored trophy. Even if only at a subconscious level!
