The past few weeks have been traumatic for many of us, including those of you foolishly rooting for New York Yankees. (Sorry, not sorry.)

These days, I have friends who have recently become clinically depressed and are happy to share this condition with anyone who will listen, willingly or not. I recommend earplugs.

Plus, for me, my Curly Girl daughter is about to give birth to a fiery baby girl any day now. She’s clearly going to be fussy – the opposite of her cold brother – because she keeps her mother awake by shaking her foot every minute and asking to go out.

But like me with every electronic device I own, she didn’t figure out how it worked.

In the meantime, I decided now was a good time to think positive. So that means remembering the times I was helped by a total stranger for no reason other than basic human kindness. I’m sure it’s happened to you too, but it’s easy to forget when you’re stressed about something else. I know some people keep a “gratitude journal” and it seems like a really good idea for those who aren’t lazy like me.

Here are a few things that come to mind:

While in college, I was driving back west from my parents’ ranch in Colorado over lonely I-80 in Wyoming. All of a sudden, my old Toyota Corolla with the rust primer on the back started to wobble strangely. I didn’t want to stop in the middle of nowhere. I started driving slowly on the shoulder at 10 or 20 miles an hour towards the nearest town, which actually wasn’t very close. Some kind of official Wyoming fish and wildlife truck stopped me and a guy in uniform got out. He looked under my hood and then said he would follow me to the next nearest town to make sure I was safe. This took a long, long time but made sure I got to a mechanic where I found out I needed a new fuel filter. And then the Good Samaritan drove me to a safe motel and drove off, waving me all thanks. Wherever you are, man, I still remember you and thank you.

Twelve years ago, I went to the hospital rfollowing surgery for a benign brain tumor. Luckily they hadn’t shaved my head so I still had all the long hair. But the long surgical incision was pulling and it hurt like hell, especially since they couldn’t give me any pain meds other than Tylenol. One of the ICU nurses noticed I was in pain and spent the entire break running around the hospital looking for a scrunchy to pull the hair off my neck. She found one, brought it back and…ah…blessed relief. Nurses are angels, basically.

My friends and I were returning from a remote area of ​​Baja California when my car suddenly died in the middle of traffic in busy Ensenada, Mexico. No Auto Club to call there unfortunately. But suddenly a guy who looked homeless jumped out and started diverting traffic around us. And another guy pulled up next to me in the biggest pickup truck in the world, pulled his cables and gave my battery a run, before he drove off. That gave me enough juice to get to the auto shop where I bought a battery and the nice clerk installed it. I was on my way again in no time. Whenever people talk about the terrors in Mexico, I remember that day.

In 1981, I had just moved to Southern California and was flying back to visit my family in Utah. When I got back to LAX after midnight because the plane was three hours late, my friend didn’t show up to pick me up and I didn’t have any money to get home. I didn’t know anyone to call at midnight and no credit cards. I sat in the luggage basket and started to cry. The Southwest baggage handler came over, asked what was wrong, and loaned me $20 for a cab home (the equivalent of $80 today.) I went back to the airport the next day and I paid back with gratitude.

I could probably go on for pages and I bet you could too. If you email me your own anecdotes with your name and city of residence at [email protected], they might be included in a future column (though I’ll probably have to cut them for length).