Helping Hand

After the jury had been dismissed from court for the day, I was slow in collecting my gear. So the floor looked pretty much cleared out as I walked down the hall to the elevator – our courtroom’s on the 9th floor of the Federal courthouse building here in Houston.

As I rounded the corner by the elevator bank, I noticed a much older man sitting stiffly in a wheelchair. Without thinking too much about it, I pressed the “down” button. When the elevator arrived, I held it open, turned to the man in the wheelchair, and asked him if I could give him a hand getting out of the building.

He insisted he didn't need my help to leave the floor. But I chatted with him a bit, told him I’d be glad to be of assistance, and he reluctantly let me wheel him into the elevator.

On the way down I asked him if his wife was picking him up on McKinney Street, in front of the courthouse. "I don't know," he said. "She's still up on the 9th floor in the bathroom."