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Just down the street from me is a young man named Zamire Wilson. I’ve seen him on a few occasions as he walked by and we exchanged a simple, “Hello” as he continued on to wherever he was headed.

After one of our big storms this past winter, I ran into him helping his mother clear snow from the family vehicle. That got their picture added to the picture gallery I created in a post I made at the time of people digging out from that snowstorm.

He is a big kid, but you know instantly he is a gentle giant. He’s well mannered and soft spoken. Some of the students I drive each year have the same demeanor.

Zamire rang my doorbell yesterday.

Only a half hour before he arrived, I had intentionally been rude to two men who dared come to my door soliciting in the name of God. They ignored the sign on my door warning against soliciting and I wasn’t polite in the manner or words I used in telling them to comprehend what they read on that sign. I told them what they could do with their pamphlet and sent them packing.

So, when my doorbell rang again a short time after closing it, I thought they had a desire to become martyrs for Jesus.

Instead, Zamire was there and recognizing him, I was actually friendly.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

Zamire was soliciting, but he wasn’t selling cookies, or siding, or even salvation for my soul.

He was looking for work. The old fashioned kind that kids don’t look for these days because Mommy and Daddy hand them money, or when they graduate high school they are rewarded with a new car they didn’t have to save for.

Zamire was willing to do yard work, weed my garden, or mow my lawn. He’s been saving his money and wants to save enough for college.

My heart grew 3 sizes that day.

I thought about letting him mow my lawn, but I was a bit hesitant in letting him operate something that can take a foot off, without getting his mother’s permission and waivers notarized and witnessed.

Instead I gave him something easy.

A small patch of ground in the front of my house had become a bit overgrown.

My neighbors were no longer buying my feigned puzzlement of why the plants I was letting grow weren’t producing flowers. My “flower bed” was suspiciously looking like the forest of weeds they actually were.

I could have done it myself, but I gave Zamire the job, loaned him a shovel, and a set out a couple of bottled waters for him, while I mowed the lawn.

He was done in less than 45 minutes and completed the task, as I instructed.

I was going to pay him the same wage per hour that I make at my job, but then I realized he should probably be paid with paper money, rather than bottle caps and bubble gum cards.

Zamire is looking for more work and I will vouch for him.

If you have some yard or cleanup work you need done within walking distance of 2nd Street in West Easton, contact me and I’ll pass along your name and number to Zamire.

You don’t find many young men these days with Zamire’s “can do” attitude.