Thanks to Them

It happens in a flash, an instant. Suddenly lives are changed for the better.

Millions of ordinary Americans, usually with little or no recognition or praise, offer extraordinary time to try to improve their world. But their path to good deeds often starts with halting, quirky steps: a debilitating illness and a prayer. A spanking in a youth center. The speech of a nun. A chance meeting at sea with dolphins.

No matter how they decide to do what they do, however, their efforts can by quietly moving: lonely seniors are no longer neglected; high-risk teen-agers get attention from a self-described former tough; crime victims receive some care and attention that the system never could give.

For all the labor, the hard work of all too many largely goes unsung. On a day of thanksgiving, it’s worth telling some of the tales of kindness.

Here are a few:

Adel Martinez

Martinez, 53, is executive director of the Neighborhood Youth Assn., a United Way agency sponsored by the Episcopal diocese of Los Angeles that serves “high - risk” adolescents. “I grew up in Chicago, ‘back of the yards,’ the stockyards. My parents were from Mexico, and everybody worked in the stockyards. We lived across the street from the Mary McDowell Settlement House. I was a settlement house brat--nursery school, basketball, camp. I was really a punk, a 10- to 12-year-old punk strutting around. I was starting to ditch school, hang out on the street, come home late.

“I had a little gang I was running around with, shoplifting, fighting. I used to walk into the settlement house, bullying people. If I wanted to play Ping-Pong, I’d take the paddle away from some kid. If they didn’t like it, I’d whack them up the side of their head with the paddle.

“One day there was a new group worker, Helen Ray. She asked me what I thought I was doing. I mouthed off at her. She grabbed me, put me over her knee and spanked me. I was dumbfounded. She threw me out and told me not to come back until I could behave. I’d sit on the stoop across the street and watch the kids go in and try to figure how I could go back and still save face.

“Then one day Helen Ray came to talk to my mother. She said she hoped I would come back and suggested I come then. I went back across the street with her. She was the one, the single person who changed my life. I spent a few years trying to prove to her how tough I was. We went to Walgreen’s once and I stole a book. After we left I took it out and she said, ‘Where’d you get that?’ and she turned me around and made me give it back. But the next day the same book was there in my mailbox. It was the first book I ever owned.

“More than anything, Helen Ray made me believe in myself. I was not dumb. All the things I wanted to be as a soft kid were OK with her, reading, writing poetry, liking art. I went to a settlement house reunion in September after 50 years. You forget sometimes--I walk around here and point to kids at NYA and say, ‘He’s a success story.’ At the reunion, people were putting their arms around my shoulder, saying, ‘She’s our success.’ ”