A rainy late afternoon in Boston, and I’m walking down Tremont Street, toward the corner of Boylston near Emerson College.  It’s a busy traffic intersection, and the light has just changed to green on Boylston, and the traffic is moving ahead, quickly ahead.

And there is a man, stooped, blind, crossing the street.

In an instant, there is a sense of impending calamity.  In an instant, out of nowhere, appears a young man holding his hand out to stop the oncoming traffic, and he takes the sightless, older man by the hand to the safety of the curb.  The young man is Hispanic, wearing a Red Sox cap and otherwise indistinguishable from a hundred other young men of his age.  He does not smile.

The young man whispers in the older man’s ear, and when the traffic abates, takes him by the hand again, and slowly walks him safely across the street. 

In an instant, catastrophe avoided. 

Others like me are watching this, and I can see by the expressions on people’s faces a combination of relief, confusion, admiration.  People were processing the event. What had just happened? Who was this Good Samaritan?  Would they have done the same?  Would I have?

I’m a pretty jaded person, not one to easily fall into a communal kumbaya mind-set.  But this event moved me, touched a chord, made me feel hopeful again.  In the bland ordinariness of the moment, something genuine and deeply human had just taken place.  It seemed to be more than just a “slice of life,” more than a singular event. It seemed an expression of the better angels of our nature.

Those angels are not frequently seen in an often harsh and insular world.  When they do appear, it is a revelation, and a reminder that the ties that bind us together are deeply rooted and universal.

One generous act of kindness does not wipe away the darker realities of everyday life for many people in Boston, or in Massachusetts. There is crime, and there are misdeeds, and there is suffering that goes unnoticed and unabated.  There are inequities that could be altered by courageous political and civic leadership.  But then, out of nowhere, comes an ordinary guy who is willing to walk into the traffic with his arm outstretched so he can protect a stooped, blind stranger.

Robert Kennedy, in a famous speech given in South Africa in 1966, said that “each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.”  He was talking in that speech about resistance to Apartheid, but the notion has broader relevance.  Making our own ripples requires moving out of our comfort zones, looking outward, taking personal acts of courage, being mindful of what we stand for and taking a stand.

And that, it seems to me, is the challenge we face as a Commonwealth, with each of us striving to achieve our own goals, to make our own ends meet.  We need to find the time and the opportunity to ask: What do we stand for, as individuals, as citizens?  And then we need to do something about it.

When he had left the stooped man safely at the sidewalk, the young man walked down the street a bit behind me, and I deliberately slowed my pace so he would catch up to me.  I turned to him and said: “That was a very nice thing you just did back there.”  He looked startled for a second, and I repeated: “That was a very nice thing you just did back there.”  And he smiled, a smile of warmth and surprise, because it is unlikely he often finds himself in the role of Good Samaritan, and perhaps even less likely that strangers on the street stop to tell him ”That was a good thing you just did.”  And he said, “Thanks man.  You know, I think we are blessed, you know?”

And I knew.

James Aloisi was the state’s secretary of transportation in 2009 and currently works at AECOM Corp.