I met Liz who I mentioned earlier, and we worked the oval on campus.  We must have passed out 1200 stickers. What a great response. While on the oval, a guy came out of one of the buildings wondering where all of the students were getting the kindness sticker. He is from POLENET, an Antarctica survey and research team which is part of OSU. After our conversation and not wanting to miss an opportunity, I gave him one of my Sow Only Seeds Of Love stickers to be taken to the research post on Antarctica. Now every continent will be represented.

Liz and her friends, Jim, Allison, Rachel, and Mikel invited me to dinner, a great homemade lasagna dinner.  There’s no way I would turn that down.  They went all out, complete sit down dinner with salad, garlic Italian bread and some extraordinary red wine. We had some great conversations, talking about what we can do to help and spread the word and the importance of finding our passion in life. They gave me some great input from their point of view, some ideas which I will use along the way.  Jim had a fun idea for making the map on the website more enjoyable. I am going to contact a teacher at Mayfield High School in Cleveland about doing this. They were very gracious hosts, making me feel welcome in their home. A million thanks to you guys. I’ll be getting them some Kindness shirts to wear during their travels.  Liz has a friend at the NY Times who she contacted about doing an article.  Bogart decided that he should run a few hundred laps around the table at the speed of light. Perhaps he was showing off to get someone to give him a bite of lasagna, I think I need to get him more exercise as our travels continue.  Whew, we thought he might wear through the carpet and we would all fall through the floor. Every time we get invited to somone’s home, Bogart seems to enjoy trying to not get us invited back. Before we shoved off, we took some great pictures in front of the bus. We even did a great version of O-H-I-O in front of the bus. I’m planning on finding a location on campus near the medical center tomorrow.

This morning, while still trying to wake up, Jen stopped by the bus to see what it was all about. Jen is the manager of a store nearby and she said their parent company sponsors appropriate charities.  She thought One Million Acts of Kindness would be a great fit for them and she was going to bring it up at her next staff meeting in October.  What a great idea!  And the beat goes on.

This evening, I attended a talk on campus given by Nicholas Kristoff, a New York Times writer.  He spoke on the world’s issues facing us today.  I bought one of his books thinking it may help get his ear for a while.  It worked.  He listened to the Kindness project and thought it was incredible.  I’ll definitely read his book, “China Wakes.” 

I also met one of the assistant deans and she said it was perfectly fine to come right onto the campus. It’s interesting how campuses vary there practices on who has access to the areas. 

Kate, my coffee shop friend a few days ago, spoke about the Kindness project at a service in the Unitarian Church nearby.  In fact, 2 young women later came up to me separately to tell me about it.  Kate also brought a reporter from the local paper to interview me and take a few pictures.  That Kate is really something.  I’ll bet I talked to at least 400 students today.

Spent the night in Brimfield, Ohio.  The next morning I went into a coffee shop in for my morning cup when a woman in a moose outfit saw me leave the bus and enter the shop.   She asked me what time the parade started.  Parade?  What parade?   She assumed I was going to be in the annual Brimfest parade, and when she realized I had no idea what she was talking about, she insisted I join in.  I was happy to do so, a few thousand people saw the bus, some even applauded with a standing “O.”  A very nice hometown parade, what a great day!

The chief of police came up and said he thought it was a great idea.  Ann, an inner city elementary school teacher, saw Bogart and came over to tell me what a great idea this was.  So, the pendulum swings both ways, somewhat of a downer at the University of Akron, and then a great day in Brimfield, Ohio.  Life is good.

I thought spending another day at the University of Akron woul be a good idea.   I found a good spot for the bus, pulled up and started to feed the parking meter.  At that point, a man in a U.of A. uniform pulled up in his golf cart and said, “Hi, you don’t have to feed the meter, we’re glad to see you.”  What a great place, I thought.

So, Bogart and I went off to begin our process, meeting students and anyone else interested enough to hear about my project.  I’ll bet I talked to a few hundred students; all seemed very interested in what was going on.  It’s this kind of reception that makes me believe that if this generation embraces what I’m doing, there’s hope for all of us. 

Just as I’m feeling great about what I’m doing and who I’m talking to, a very official looking woman came up to me and said, “I’m sorry to have to say this, because I love what you are doing, but someone complained about you, you’ll have to leave.  You can go down the street if you like, as long as you are off campus.”   What?  Instantaneous and complete deflation.  There are 2 things I just couldn’t figure out, who would complain about this and what could they possibly complain about?  Sheeese!  Even Bogart was miffed.  He looked at me as if to say, “Let’s get outta here.”  Back to the bus we went, as we got closer to it, I can see someone left me a note under the wiper, an invitation to talk somewhere, I’m sure.  Wait a minute…..it’s not an invitation…..it’s a parking ticket!  A parking ticket!   Some parking ticket giver ticketed the Kindness bus.   Can you believe it?  Later I found it was all a misunderstanding and things were set right.  Thank to the University of Akron Security Department.

The first day of my visit to the University of Akron,  I met Frank, one of the professors, and he was so interested he asked how we could keep our dialog going to continue moving the project along.  I was also invited to a soccer game to sit with a group of kids.  It was a great game, Akron beating Indiana 1-0.  Akron truly deserves their number 1 ranking.  He then invited me to spend the night at his house on Saturday, he and his wife Dorothy are having a few friends over and it would be a good chance to spread the word.