Interestingly, her husband is a military veteran.  She said that he was kind of anti-Trump, too, which was curious, but that her 14-year-old son had convinced her to listen to me, which she did. So she called here to thank me and to thank all of us for helping to change her mind about Donald Trump.

And, in the process, or in the context of the call, she said that her family did not have a computer. And that was in response to a question of mine about why she thought what she thought about Trump. She made the point of — well, she didn’t make a point of it, it was kind of a throwaway, she didn’t have a computer so the only thing she had was television and broadcast media as a means of learning about Trump.

So at the end of the conversation, I said, “Did I hear you right, you don’t have a computer?”

“That’s right.  We have one, but it’s really old and it broke,” and so forth.

“Well, would you like an iPad?  I’ve got a couple of iPads here and I’d be glad to send it to you.”  And she said, “Oh, oh, that’d be so wonderful,” stuttering around.

So I said, “Well, hang on, don’t hang up.  Mr. Snerdley will get your address so we can ship it to you.  You’ll have it tomorrow,” which is today.  She’s probably already got it ’cause we send everything Priority One.  None of this second business day stuff here.  I don’t understand why people — if you’re gonna send somebody something, get it there as soon as you can, the next day.  That’s when I want stuff.  I can’t believe people that send stuff in a week.  Well, I guess I can.  I’m just one of these people, when a package is coming, it’s like Christmas morning.

Anyway, Snerdley told me that, when he was getting her information, she got very nervous and sheepish and said, “I don’t know if I can afford this.  What does it cost?”  He told me this, and it almost brought a tear to my eye.  She had no idea that it was a gift, and she said to Snerdley, “Nobody ever does anything like this for us.”  And so she was just thrilled as she could be that somebody was giving her an iPad.

It got me to thinking, you know, that is a significant portion of our country.  We live in a great place, but we have people who live in a number of different economic circumstances.  When we talk about the nation’s economy, particularly when social scientists talk about income, they divide income into five areas.  They’re called quintiles.  And it’s just a way of expressing the economic circumstance for people in the country to get an idea of GDP, productivity, and so forth.

And there are a lot of people, particularly in this economy, who don’t have much and are having a tough time finding work.  In this case, a retired military family and all of the problems that they have.  It makes me realize, you know, the great fortune all of us have to be Americans, yet there are a whole lot of people — I call them the backbone of America, the people that make the country work.  They’re out there, they’re working and they’re slaving away or they’re trying to.

Some of them just have a really tough time getting ahead, but they’re every bit the American citizen that you and I are.  And I always have them in mind, every day when I’m doing this program.  And I have them in mind when I count my own blessings.  So it was another realization and reminder of people and their future and the way they live.

Not everything is TMZ and not everything is a red carpet opening or media event.  And I’m so flattered that people like that are in the audience because we really think that this program is helpful, in a motivating and even inspirational way.  I mean, to ask Mr. Snerdley, “What does it cost?  I don’t know if we can afford it.”

I don’t know, folks, it melted my heart.  And not because we were giving anything.  Just the added — obviously this family, nobody gives them anything.  They’re not familiar with that.  They obviously haven’t won anything prize-wise.  I don’t know if they play the lottery or not.  But, anyway, it was a great way to end the day yesterday.