Celebration of an Honest Man

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) is quoted as saying, “Suppose you were a member of Congress. And suppose you were an idiot. But I repeat myself.” Abraham Lincoln had a slightly different take and is reported to have said, “Politics, as a trade, finds most and leaves nearly all dishonest.”

And we certainly have a lot of dishonesty in the political arena these days. It is not limited to one political party, even though the following two examples are both Democrats. I saw recently that Bernie Sanders claims he is for the common man, but he himself had an income in excess of $1,000,000 this past year. And Elizabeth Warren says the same but she has a history, before she entered Congress, of working on behalf of some very large corporations.

Thus, it is always enjoyable to me when I get to deal with someone who is an honest and trusting individual. One example from just this afternoon was when I picked up one of our vehicles from our local mechanic, Ron Detwiler.

We had originally scheduled the van for some work last month because we had learned that one of the back springs was broken – even though the vehicle was still drivable. But before we took it in, we had another problem with it that was more critical when one of the cylinders began misfiring. He corrected that problem and asked that we drive it for a while to ensure that the problem was truly fixed and then he would take care of the other problem later. He gave us no bill at the time.

In the meantime, he checked on the pricing for the new springs (you have to replace both at the same time) and so we scheduled the rest of the work for today. At the end of the day we went to pick it up (he only lives about two miles from us). The van was done, it had a new inspection sticker, and was ready to go.

When I pulled out my wallet, he said, “We just finished the work a short while ago and I don’t have the bill ready yet. I’ll call you tomorrow with the total and you can stop by to pay me.”

How neat is that? I trust him to do the work in an honest fashion and to charge me appropriately, and he trusts me to pay him later!

All our relationships should be like this. It used to be common that a man’s word was his honor and a handshake would seal a deal. But now what used to be common unfortunately no longer is. That makes it so refreshing when Ron and I can have that trusting relationship. Would that other things in life were the same!