Tears on the tram--returning to roots

I boarded the train at the Milton Keynes Central Railway Station on my way to Liverpool--a somewhat lengthy ride. The carriage was full, with the exception of two seats currently occupied by the feet of two teenagers. A bit heavily laden, I walked down the aisle to where they were seated and asked if I might take one of the places. Neither looked at me, but one snarled, "Bugger off!" 

Fortunately another seat opened up a couple stops later, but I was thrown back on a different scene, the memory of a tram in Warsaw. I had been invited to the University to lecture in the sociology department, and then to go to do some like presentations in Cracow. I was in my mid-fifties at this point and had had jumped at the chance, now that the travel restrictions to Central Europe had been lifted and I could make my first visit to Poland.

I jumped on a crowded tram, this time without baggage, and was immediately offered a seat by a younger man. The scene repeated itself each time I boarded public transport. After a few days, I found myself regularly at the point of tears as each moment of gentleness and kindness rekindled the memories of my earliest years in the company of a bygone generation of Polish immigrants. Sobs of reconciliation with  my past. In fact, these relatives and their friends surrounded me with the value that said, "If you take care of others, you will be taken care of."

 So different from the wrenching I later experienced as I my life shifted into the raw US context, "Take care of #1." "If everyone takes care of him or herself, everyone will be taken care of..." After much trying, I still don't believe it.