One dark and dank night in Birmingham, U.K. I was walking alone on the campus of the University, near the canal on the western edge. It had been raining for a million weeks and the whole country was flooded. My shoes were wet and the low-pressure sulphur streetlights made every color look like dark blood. I was homesick and baffled, and no one likes Americans much so there was that problem, too. There was no one I had known for longer than a few weeks for thousands of miles.

My chin was tucked in–it was cold, cold, cold–so I didn’t see the bundled man, stocky and whiskery, until he was near me and as he passed me he said:

“Cheer up, love.”

With a Brummie accent straight out of central casting, wide open and working class, and completely unrestrained and unaffected.

No other encounter with a stranger has ever affected my outlook so much.

Anything like this ever happen to you?