In a lot of ways, Saturday is kind of our default time for frantically catching up with stuff we missed the rest of the week. Errands, kids, parents, paperwork, schoolwork, mortal spats: The rules of engagement command our attention to all these and more, and Saturday thus becomes the province of the sleep-deprived. Many biblical scholars regard Sunday as the seventh day of the week, when God rested. His excuse? We imagine he was plum tuckered from all that overtime on the sixth. So it was for one overtaxed La Jolla woman, whose recent Saturday trek across Girard Avenue would end in a case in point. She trudged the crosswalk like an acrobat, carrying two gigantic bags full of what sounded like glass containers – and the contents would be made public as she reached the other side of the street. She’d lost her footing at the curb, taking a serious header as a colossal clank and shatter echoed all the way to Carlsbad. Spent and exasperated, she sat on the mountain of shards, her arms akimbo, her language likely leaving nothing to the imagination.
That’s when La Jolla’s spirit of generosity broke through the week’s fatigue. No more than five seconds later, five onlookers – including one guy who’d pulled over in his car – gathered to help the lady, gingerly lifting her to her feet and pawing the splinters from her clothes. Earnest questions about her condition competed with the noise from the broken glass, and they stopped only when each Samaritan was persuaded that the lady was all right. Peace and health were restored to the land. The street cleaners would take it from there. If you’d seen what happened, you’ve have known that these benefactors weren’t fulfilling anybody’s sense of requirement. They were obviously from all walks of life (the guy in the car was driving a high-end Mercedes), and they’d rallied amid a sense of genuine concern. Rightly or wrongly, La Jolla and La Jollans may have a certain reputation for privilege, but that’s equaled by the size of the neighborhood’s helping hand, drop-dead Saturdays notwithstanding. Martin Jones Westlin
