"Pay It Forward'' is alive and well.

On December 16, 2016 at 7:30 in the morning I pulled into McDonald’s Parking Lot in Gouverneur, N.Y. wanting a hot cup of coffee on my way to Syracuse. I am a 74-year old male who was dressed very warm. I shut my van off and went inside to get my coffee which was a stupid mistake on my part, as it was 22 below zero with a wind speed of 8 miles per hour. When I came back outside to start my van it wouldn’t start. I opened the hood to check things out and found a loose battery cable so I leaned in and tightened it up and tried to start my van again. No luck, my battery was dead.

I was going into panic mode with it being so cold and I was forty miles from home. As I was having trouble with my van a man came over to me and asked me what my problem was. I told him that my battery had died and he told me he had a booster pack in his car and went to go get it so that I could use his booster pack to boost my van. As I hooked up the booster pack he went inside McDonald’s to warm up.

When I tried to boost my van with the booster pack it didn’t have enough charge left in it to get my motor to crank over. Just about then the man emerged from being inside and asked if I diagnosed the problem and I told him there wasn’t enough charge left in the booster so he asked me if I had jumper cables. I replied that I did indeed have jumper cables so he went and got his car and parked next to my van to boost me. The poor guy only had a light jacket on to keep him warm with no gloves or hat. He was shaking so much he couldn’t even get his hood opened.

When we finally got his hood opened I told him to get in his car and stay out of the cold seeing as how he wasn’t properly dressed for the weather then I proceeded to hook up the jumper cables to both vehicles. After a little coaxing my van finally started up and I was relieved. I was so thankful to this wonderful man, I tried paying him something for helping me out but he refused saying “Pay It Forward’’ I now know what pay it forward actually means and that is “to pass the kindness onto someone else who needs it”. He drove out of the parking lot and I continued my trip to Syracuse so I could get the train which was late by two hours.

While at the train station waiting, I had time to reflect on this morning’s adventure and thinking about this again broke me into tears. I just couldn’t get over that wonderful Samaritan who was driving a P.T. Cruiser. I certainly hope this person sees this letter and realizes it is a big “Thank You’’ and I must give him a bunch of new gloves, so hey buddy if you’re reading this call me 1- 518-358-4691 anytime.

Dennis White