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Happy Indigenous Columbus Good Samaritan Day
13 October 2025
When we wake up too early to get out of bed, we hit a button on our Sony clock radio some bank gave us 40 years ago that plays NPR for an hour. It usually sends us right back to sleep but not before we hear some interesting tidbit. Like today when we learned it isn't just Indigenous Peoples' Day and Columbus Day, it's also Good Samaritan Day.
That's because Oct. 13 is always Good Samaritan Day, whereas the other two bounce around the October calendar to create a three-day weekend by observing the holiday on the second Monday in October.
On Oct. 13 in 1964, 28-year-old bartender Kitty Genovese was attacked outside her apartment in the middle of the night in NYC. The New York Times reported that 38 people had witnessed the attack, but didn't do anything to help Genovese, who was killed by her attacker.
But the attack had occurred at 3 a.m. so there were not 38 witnesses, as the New York Times later reported. But the story popularized the concept of "the bystander effect."
No good Samaritans are awake at 3 a.m., apparently.
Just to refresh your memory (or perhaps to inform it), the Parable of the Good Samaritan goes like this:
A man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and ran off, leaving him for dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came by and saw the victim of the attack, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, passing by on his donkey, came upon the man and, when he saw him, took pity on him. He bent over him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he gave the innkeeper a generous advance. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'
Whether we're indigenous or not, we're all Samaritans. But some of us are frightened Samaritans. We see someone in need but we don't intervene. We imagine our own physical vulnerabilities or legal liabilities or pressing engagements elsewhere.
But visiting a nursing home every day for the last few years, we've seen a lot of good Samaritans step up to help their fellow Samaritans inhabiting the place.
We were not among them at first. Then one day, a friend visiting our mother heard Mom's roommate babble incoherently from her wheelchair that she wanted to get into bed. Well, you don't intervene in that case, you press the call light and in a few days a CNA appears to see what the problem is.
Our friend somehow understood what the woman wanted and went over to her to help her out of the wheelchair and into bed as if she had been doing it all her life. It was not as easy as it sounds.
But what was easy for our friend was that she recognized a call for help and didn't hesitate to respond. She'd been doing that all her life.
Well, we thought, if she can do that, so can we. And we found occasions to be a good Samaritan many times after that.
The trick, we've learned, is to put yourself in the other person's situation (they often do not wear shoes, you know). Imagine being helpless and all these able bodied people ignoring your distress. Imagine the desperation.
Would you not be grateful for someone, not an angel really just a Samaritan, to come over to do what they can to help?