Perhaps I was destined to be a Nice Guy. There seemed to be signs of it from the very beginning. In fact some of my earliest memories as a child seemed to revolve around some sort of moral or ethical question. That sounds very odd, even to me, since the conventional wisdom would suggest that one’s sense of right and wrong develops over time through parental guidance and life’s experiences. It just doesn’t seem normal that as a mere toddler I would have wrestled with such issues. Perhaps I was blessed with an early gift of ethics. Then again, perhaps I was just a weird little kid.
I can remember as far back as four years old, when my parents, my two older brothers and I lived in a modest split ranch home with a one-car garage in the town of Massapequa, New York, out on Long Island. It was the early 1960’s and life – at least for a four-year-old – seemed relatively simple. The choice between right and wrong, between good and evil was as straight forward as recognizing the “good guys” from the “bad guys” on TV. Simplistic examples of the distinction were upon us where ever we looked. Church was good. Sin was bad. Saying “please and thank you” was good. Saying “crap” was bad. My best friend Kenny Murphy and I were good. The neighborhood bully, Timmy Flynn, was bad.
Neighborhood ethics were clear back then; at least to us little Guys. For example, Timmy Flynn was a bully who had obviously staked out his turf on the “Nasty” side of the ethical fence. He was not a Nice Guy. Even at four years old it didn’t take long for me to identify Timmy as an individual devoid of Nice Guy tendencies. In one of my earliest childhood memories, I clearly remember sitting on a neighbor’s lawn with a group of other kids and watching Timmy come up and grab the neighbor’s cat. He picked up the poor unsuspecting pet by its tail and said, “Watch how far he can fly!” The six-year-old villain proceeded to spin the cat around like he was attempting to break the Olympic hammer throw record, and then let poor Mr. Whiskers go half way across the lawn. Fortunately the kitty was unharmed as he landed gracefully on all fours, as cats tend to do. Timmy let out a big laugh. Some children were amused, others seemed horrified. As for me, my four-year-old wheels of conscience and moral jurisprudence were turning furiously. And after a short moment of processing the circumstances, I arrived at what must have been my earliest recorded ethical judgment: that wasn’t a very Nice thing to do.
Rescue Mission
I imagined many years later that maybe my emotional sentiment at that moment was a foreshadowing of more Nice Guy things to come. Then again, maybe I just felt sorry for cats at the time. But coincidentally my mother was able to recall her own first memory of my budding Nice Guyhood, and this too involved the welfare of another defenseless cat. Mom often told this story of how, at around that same age, I brought home a stray cat one snowy winter day. As Mom tells it, I knocked on our front door to alert her to my dramatic animal rescue. Apparently, during my explorations of the snow-covered neighborhood, I had stumbled upon the animal lying half buried in the fresh snow. Taking pity on the poor old cat, I picked him up and placed him upon my Flexible Flyer sled, securing him with a scarf so we could endure the elements for the long and arduous 40 foot journey back to my home. As Mom stood on the front stoop gazing down at her four-year-old son and his rescue beneficiary, I looked up and said, “I think he’s sick.” Although Mom had no true veterinary experience, she was able to quickly make a full diagnosis of the cat’s illness: he was frozen stiff.
I’m not sure whatever happened to the cat after that. I imagine Mom did what most mothers would do in that situation in order to protect the innocence of her young son from the harsh realities of life, death and cruelty to animals. But the point is that the seedlings of Nice Guy righteousness seemed to be present early on.
Neither of these early examples is meant to suggest that once a Nice guy, always a Nice Guy, or conversely, that Nice Guys are born rather than “made.” I have no scientific thesis to offer regarding when morality is supposed to be acquired and whether it is inherited or learned; and I’m not really sure that abusing or defending cats actually offers any insight whatsoever into early developmental signs of comprehending ethics.
As I searched for the roots of my own Nice Guy tendencies I had to look well beyond the childhood rescue of a frozen cat to draw any real conclusions of value. This called for an examining of both the family environment as well as the family tree. The positive effects of my upbringing were fairly apparent to me, but I also suspected genetic and biological influence as well. I was curious about that side of the equation. Was it possible that there was some Nice Guy gene that was handed down to me from generation to generation, perhaps dating all the way back to the dawn of mankind where Cro-Magnon Rogers was the least likely to bludgeon his fellow man to death with a crudely crafted club? And if so, from which side of the family did the gene pass? Was it Mom, Dad or perhaps both?
In building the case that Nice Guys were destined to Finish First in life, one thing became very clear to me while examining my own Nice Guy roots. No matter where we come from, each one of us is born with the potential for adopting the ways of the Nice Guy and experiencing the rewards that come with it. Sure, I likely had the good fortune of a combined “nature/nurture” influence that helped guide my Nice Guy path. But I’ve also discovered the path is there for anyone to take.
So, was I destined to be a Nice Guy? The answer is yes… just like everyone else.
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