We cannot despair of humanity, since we are ourselves human beings.

I get a lot flack from my parents and older relatives for my thoughts on younger and older adults. Most of our elders think that "kids" are ungrateful and rude. Maybe not to any great extent, but in a situation where adults are pitted against us, they are right because they are our elders. Everyone reading this I am sure, has experienced ageism at some point.

Yesterday during the big St. John's "storm", people on my street were shoveling their little hearts out. The snow was easily waist deep and the people on the opposite side of our street had even more.

(Oh, this is where I say that earlier this week we got a snow-blower. Yeah, poor my ass.)

My Dad went out in the falling snow along with everyone else and snow-blowed the snow in our driveway. Then he did our neighbours. Then the house next to us. Then the house across the street. My Dad knows what it is like to shovel and this coupled with a new toy made him invincible.

But then of course as we who live in St. John's know, it started to rain. And it was gross.

So my Dad came in and started to take off his boots and stuff. I looked out the window and saw that he had cleared everyone's homes around us except for the students across the street.

Three of them were out in the rain trying to get at least one car cleared out, and man did they have their work cut out for them. They easily had the most snow and the rain was making it heavy and icy.

I told my Dad that if he thought just because they were young they couldn't use the help, he was sadly mistaken. So being the great guilt-tripper I am, my Dad put on his boots again and trudged across the street to clear them out.

About an hour ago the doorbell rang. One of the students from across the street had a thank-you card for my Dad. It said they were extremely grateful and that they were there to help if we ever needed it. They also included $20 which my Dad promptly returned because taking money from University students is like taking from the homeless.

I'd just like to say here that this is just one more example about how age plays no part in the way a person is. My Dad snow-blowed everyone out because he is altruistic, just like those students across the street gave us that card because they appreciate what my Dad did for them (and not one other person he helped made more than the gesture of a passing "thank you", they were all older adults).

The word elder is not synonymous with the word benevolent.