When I read a post about taking someone to the movies, I was reminded of something that happened a couple of years ago.

I used to drink Cokes and they had a promotion where there was a code inside the bottle cap. You went to a website and entered the code and maybe you won something. I won some free Cokes. But then I won the grand prize! I was surprised and pleased.

The grand prize was free movies for a year. They pointed out that one movie a week was that free movies for a year meant. All of the tickets had a deadline later than a year from the day I received them. So I must use them in the following year. I used quite a few by taking friends to movies we all wanted to see.

But the best thing I did with them was that I donated 22 tickets (all I had left by that time) to the local Women’s Transition House, a place where women and their children could go when avoiding a bad situation in general and get help to make a new start.

My workplace team had decided to help people in need, so we collected donations for that particular New Year’s Day. I knew the Women’s Transition House provided childcare for the women so they could go for job interviews.

I put those tickets in a box and wrote a note, asking the Women’s Transition House staff to give movie tickets to women there over the holidays to have something fun to do, with or without their children. It made me really happy to do this.

While traveling abroad, Mr. Jackson Frank ran short of money. So he wrote to his brother, asking for $500. “Send the money by telegram,” he wrote, “to the Fisher Bank in P...

After a week he began calling at the Fisher Bank. He showed his passport. “Nothing has come for you,” he was told. This went on for two weeks and Mr. Frank got very worried. He sent a telegram to his brother, but there was no reply. In the fourth week Mr. Frank was arrested for failing to pay his hotel bill. His passport was taken from him. He tried to explain the problem, but no one believed him. He was sent to prison for six days.

When he came out, he went immediately to the Fisher bank. The clerk he spoke to was a new man. “Have you received $500 for me?” he ask, “My name is Jackson Frank.” The clerk checked his books. “Yes, Jackson, it’s here. It came by telegram.—let me see—oh, more than two months ago. We wondered where you were.” He showed Mr. Frank the order. The order read:“Pay Mr. Frank Jackson the sum of $500...” “ But my name is Jackson Frank, not Frank Jackson.” “Oh, that’s all right, sir. It was in our books under the letter ‘J’, but it’s your money.” The clerk laughed, “A human mistake, sir! We’re all human beings, so we all make mistakes. A family name like Frank sounds strange to me.” Mr. Frank was silent. He really wanted to hit somebody. At last he said, “A human mistake—I think some humans need kicking.”

When I was 17, I read a magazine article about a museum called the McNay, once the home of a watercolorist named Marian McNay. She had requested the community to turn it into a museum upon her death. On a sunny Saturday, Sally and I drove over to the museum. She asked, “Do you have the address?” “No, but I’ll recognize it; there was a picture in the magazine.”

“Oh, stop. There it is!”

The museum was free. We entered, excited. A group of people sitting in the hall stopped talking and stared at us.

“May I help you?” a man asked. “No,” I said. “We’re fine.” Tour guides got on my nerves. What if they talked a long time about a painting you weren’t that interested in? Sally had gone upstairs. The people in the hall seemed very nosy (爱窥探的), keeping their eyes on me with curiosity. What was their problem? I saw some nice sculptures in one room. Suddenly I sensed a man standing behind me. “Where do you think you are?” he asked. I turned sharply. “The McNay Art Museum!” He smiled, shaking his head. “Sorry, the McNay is on New Braunfels Street.” “What’s this place?” I asked, still confused. “Well, it’s our home.” My heart jolted (颤动). I raced to the staircase and called out, “Sally! Come down immediately!”

“There’s some really good stuff up there.” She stepped down, looking confused. I pushed her toward the front door, waving at the family, saying, “Sorry, please forgive us. You have a really nice place.” Outside, when I told Sally what happened, she covered her mouth, laughing. She couldn’t believe how long they let us look around without saying anything.

The real McNay was splendid, but we felt nervous the whole time we were there. Van Gogh, Picasso. This time, we stayed together, in case anything else unusual happened.

Thirty years later, a woman approached me in a public place. “Excuse me, did you ever enter a residence, long ago, thinking it was the McNay Museum?”

“Yes. But how do you know? We never told anyone.”

“That was my home. I was a teenager sitting in the hall. Before you came over, I never realized what a beautiful place I lived in. I never felt lucky before. You thought it was a museum. My feelings about my home changed after that. I’ve always wanted to thank you.”