The conundrum of kindness
2/4/2026
“BE KIND!”
OK, OK, I heard you the first time. And I do want to be kind, but I’m in a rush and I don’t want to be taken advantage of and shouldn’t I first be kind to myself? All arguments I have made over the years to justify NOT being kind.
But don’t we all in our hearts want to be kind — or are we “Bad to the Bone,” as sung by George Thorogood and the Destroyers?
Rutger Bregman wrote a book in 2019, “Humankind,” where he claims the science is as clear as clear can be — people default not to evil, but to kindness. He claims that when the Titanic is sinking, unlike in the movie, it is kindness that rules. When the Twin Towers are burning, it is kindness that is present in those stairways. When London is being bombed in World War II, it is kindness that motivates the population.
What? Is Bregman saying we lean toward goodness?
“I was born in 1925 on a farm south of Sioux City.”
Whip thin. Large smile. Crinkly eyes. Her name is Mary Drossel.
One hundred years old. It’s hard to believe her age as she greets me with a warm openness and curious gaze. She is so not jaded by life and gives off a feeling of apple pie and just-whipped cream.
Mary Drossel is a teacher. She started when she was 18 years old. She attended country school as a child, earned her teaching degree from Cedar Falls, and then she was hired to teach at another country school in her home township.
“I had 19 students. They ranged from kindergarten to eighth grade. The oldest student was 17. I was 18.”
And then what?
“I taught two years country school, and then I did public school in town. Then I was home for 12 years raising my kids. You see, I married a farmer who came home from the Second World War.”
And then what happened after your kids were older?
“I went back to teaching. When I turned 44, I had a new baby. I kept teaching anyway. I taught a total of 35 years. I quit teaching in 1990. My husband died in 1993.”
Mary now resides at a retirement community in Johnston. While wandering the halls recently, she ran across a professional photographer, Tim Abramowitz. His mom and dad had also been part of that retirement community, but both died a few years ago. Tim remained connected to the facility and was hanging his photographs of rural Iowa in a hall there in preparation for a presentation.
“Tim was hanging those pictures. My country school wasn’t up there. But there was other country schools. So, I asked Tim if he thought the country school I taught at was still standing.”
Tim is straight-backed and sober. Although his family came from Illinois, where his mom and dad were school teachers, he has the no-nonsense look of an old Iowa farmer who drinks black coffee at the cafe counter in his feed cap. Tim quietly gets things done.
“I asked Mary where her school house was located. She mentioned she was in Grant Township in Woodbury County — Grant Number 5,” Tim said.
Was that helpful?
“Every township in Iowa had nine schools. At one time, over 14,000 one-room school houses in the State of Iowa because they built schoolhouses every two miles so that no student would have to walk more than one mile to school. And so I realized that I had photographed Grant Number 4 in Woodbury County, which was just two miles down the road from Grant Number 5. And so I figured, well, I’ll be able to find it.”
OK.
“And I’d really love to have a photo for Mary.”
So Tim and his friend and fellow photographer, Bill Roach, packed up the car and travelled three and a half hours to a remote field where they found Grant Number 5. And took pictures.
“I didn’t tell Mary I was going to do this. So, at the presentation the other day, I presented her with the photograph.”
Wow!
“I could hardly keep the tears away,” Mary said.
“Nor could I,” Tim said.
OK, Tim drove seven hours, took this beautiful photo, gifted it to a stranger, and told no one (I found out from Tim’s friend, Bill). Mary was touched to the core by Tim’s kindness.
So… do I really NOT have time to be kind?
And, as Mary says, “There’s a time for all of us to die. It’s marked. We don’t know, and we should not know.”
So, BE KIND — before the buzzer goes off ending the game. Trust me, you want to anyway. ♦
Joe Weeg spent 31 years bumping around this town as a prosecutor for the Polk County Attorney’s Office. Now retired, he writes about the frequently overlooked people, places and events in Des Moines on his blog: www.joesneighborhood.com.
