I thought spending another day at the University of Akron woul be a good idea. I found a good spot for the bus, pulled up and started to feed the parking meter. At that point, a man in a U.of A. uniform pulled up in his golf cart and said, “Hi, you don’t have to feed the meter, we’re glad to see you.” What a great place, I thought.
So, Bogart and I went off to begin our process, meeting students and anyone else interested enough to hear about my project. I’ll bet I talked to a few hundred students; all seemed very interested in what was going on. It’s this kind of reception that makes me believe that if this generation embraces what I’m doing, there’s hope for all of us.
Just as I’m feeling great about what I’m doing and who I’m talking to, a very official looking woman came up to me and said, “I’m sorry to have to say this, because I love what you are doing, but someone complained about you, you’ll have to leave. You can go down the street if you like, as long as you are off campus.” What? Instantaneous and complete deflation. There are 2 things I just couldn’t figure out, who would complain about this and what could they possibly complain about? Sheeese! Even Bogart was miffed. He looked at me as if to say, “Let’s get outta here.” Back to the bus we went, as we got closer to it, I can see someone left me a note under the wiper, an invitation to talk somewhere, I’m sure. Wait a minute…..it’s not an invitation…..it’s a parking ticket! A parking ticket! Some parking ticket giver ticketed the Kindness bus. Can you believe it? Later I found it was all a misunderstanding and things were set right. Thank to the University of Akron Security Department.
