We read so much about man's (and woman's) inhumanity to man, and about children bullying other children who are different, that we often forget that most people — though they don't make it into newspaper reports — are kind and caring.

I am 87 years and require a cane to keep my balance. I live alone and do my own shopping. When I go to the supermarket, very often someone will offer me her shopping cart and return to get another for herself. If I am standing at a shelf trying to reach an article, anyone who happens along will offer to reach it for me. If I hesitate, trying to remember where some item is, people will stop by and ask if I need help. And, believe it or not, if I am waiting at the checkout line, often someone will offer to let me in ahead of her. And, once outside, there is almost always another stranger who will go out of her way to ask whether I need help loading the groceries into my car.

And when I go to a small store, the kind that does not have shopping carts, the person behind the counter will insist on taking my purchases to the car and putting them inside.

You don't hear about this kind of thing on the daily news, but it is much more representative of what daily life is really like, of how our neighbors behave. I thank God that we mostly are, at heart, good people. Well, in Baltimore, anyway.

Matilda Weiner, Baltimore