The Heart of America: TX Grocery Store Lets Customers Leave Without Paying

00:00:10
Speaker 1: And we continue with Our American Stories, and up next, a story from one of our listeners. And by the way, we love our listeners’ stories. Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. They are truly some of our favorites. When there was a break in the deep freeze that swept across Texas in February of 2021, Tim Hennessy and his wife, Deb, piled into his Jeep and headed for H-E-B, a beloved grocery store chain for many Texans. It has almost a cult-like following. Tim shared his story on his Facebook page, and it immediately went viral. Tim, who’s a big fan of our show, contacted us to see if we thought our listeners would want to hear it, and we, of course, said yes. Here’s Tim with the story he and his wife entitled “The Heart of America.”

00:01:00
Speaker 2: Very quick background. Originally from Chicago, and we lived there many years. And then we moved to—my wife and I—Dad moved to California in 1993 for an opportunity, and it seemed like California. It was kind of like the heyday for California. Things were moving, things were pretty good for us there. We lived there twenty-three years, and then three or four years ago, my kids decided to move to Houston, and they basically said, “You know, we just can’t afford to live in California. The best we could do is get an apartment for twenty-five hundred dollars a month, and it was just too expensive, and they didn’t want to be ‘house poor.'” So they moved to Texas, and it tore our hearts out, really, honestly. And we caught our—we found ourselves sitting in California at home. We still have a son who was in California. One day, we found ourselves sitting there, going, “What are we doing here?” We have a grandson in Houston, and we kind of, you know, we love California. The beauty, the weather. It’s kind of hard. There are very few places in the entire world you’re going to get that kind of beauty and weather and stuff. And we thought, it’s the best at both worlds. We moved to Texas. We have a lot more freedom than we have in California. We could save a lot more money before we retire, and we get to see our grandkids every single day. So, a few years ago, we decided to move, and, you know, I find people are nice everywhere you live. You could, you know, I think it’s what you focus on. There are good people everywhere, but there’s a—it’s a level of niceness in Texas. The people that kind of struck us as soon as we moved here. It’s almost like, “Why are you so nice to us? What’s your agenda?” And it’s—it’s a different kind of nice. And so that kind of niceness we recognized everywhere. Yes, they’re no here; yes, ma’am; no, ma’am. And there’s—and the people at wherever where you go are just a different level of nice. So, right around February 2021, somewhere in there, 2021, it was a historic storm here in Texas. Fifteen degrees were below, closer to zero, a couple of days for a whole week, and Texas is just not built for that. When I lived in Chicago, they had snowplows; they had salt for the roads. Here, they’re not built for—they don’t have that kind of stuff because it’s rarely that cold. Usually, maybe it gets down to thirty degrees. Power was going out for four days, off and on, every couple of hours. It was out. Hardest powers when the water went out, because you start thinking to yourself, “Okay, this is getting real.” Now, how long is this water going to be out? Is this a day, two days, three days, a week? You know, could you start thinking these stories of people don’t have water for a month? So, in between that, we had snow on one of the days. And when you get some snow that goes over the ice, it makes it a little bit more easy, traction-wise, because we didn’t want to drive anywhere. The roads were literally impassable. You couldn’t go anywhere. You could even walk on the roads; you’d fall down. So we got some snow. So my wifey said, “Well, we got a little bit of a break. Let’s go to the store. Let’s get a few things for some friends.” We decided to drive to a local store here called H-E-B. H-E-B is like the dominating grocery chain in Texas, and so we pulled in. People were lining up. We got on the line, about fifty people. We made the best—we were probably outside for about twenty minutes. Finally, the line started moving. We got in the store, and about ten, fifteen minutes into shopping, the lights went out, and you literally could hear it go, “Oh, here we go again!” And so we looked around at each other. It’s like, “Well, let’s just keep shopping until we’re told not to shop.” In the back of my mind, I kept thinking they were going to come along pretty soon and make us leave. I was hoping they weren’t just going to kick us out and we’d have to leave our stuff there, but I kind of half-expected that. So we shopped for about ten to fifteen minutes. My wife was going to—oh, she said, “Oh, I forgot the bananas!” So we started going that way. That’s when one of the employees came along and said, “Hey, folks, would you mind going to the front, and we’ll get you checked out as quickly as we can. We have a process for this, so don’t worry. We’ll get you out here as quickly as we can.” So, of course, we go up, and we get in line. There are probably ten, I would say ten to twelve people in front of us. Most of people had full baskets. Bunch of people behind us. I don’t know, maybe ten, twelve. I didn’t really look, but there was a ton. So I thought this was going to take a long time. Because there were about fifteen other lines, people going from the front to the back of the store, because everybody was checking out at the same time. So, in my mind, I even said to Deb, my wife, “Well, this is going to take a long time. Are they going to get calculators out? What are they going to do?” We weren’t sure, so I thought, “Well, maybe we’re just waiting for the power to kick back in, and maybe they have a generator.” So maybe ten, twenty minutes somewhere in there, went by. We didn’t. We barely moved. I don’t even know if we moved up one cart. And then, all of a sudden, within a few minutes, we started moving. And as we moved up, a woman employee says, “Do you guys have any alcohol?” Like, “Look at our carts.” And I said, “No, but if you’re giving out drinks, I could use one right now,” you know, “just kind of make it fun.” I like to have fun with people. And so, within a few minutes—I mean, literally, just a couple of minutes—we were ushered to an open aisle, and they waved us over. We go over there. My wife starts putting stuff on the canar belt, and the woman said, “Oh, don’t put anything up there; we won’t be able to bag anything today.” So I thought it was kind of weird. “Okay.” So we pushed our car to the end, and she looked at us, looked at our groceries, and kind of motioned with her arm, like, “Go home and be safe, you know, drive home safe.” And we looked at her like—I even said, “Who, how do we pay?” And as I’m saying this, I’m watching all these carts go out the door, and it kind of hit us like, “Wow, they’re literally sending us home without asking us who we are, looking at what we had, counting anything, expecting anything from us.” And I turned to my wife. She was tearing up. It was just this wonderful gesture of this company. Because we always want to bash companies—that they’re all for profit. This company is literally letting two hundred people walk out of this store without paying a single dime, without asking who you voted for, what’s your social status, who you are—nothing—because, quite frankly, you’re a customer. It’s just an amazing thing. So we started leaving, and we were like, “This is unbelievable!” And we got to the door, and there were about eight to ten of their employees standing there and kind of greeting us. So it felt like a wedding, like, “Okay, for everybody, go home, be safe!” They were waving at us, and it became like a festive mood. And I turned at the edge of the door, and I said, “Oh, wait a minute, I forgot the filet mignon!” You know? And they all busted out laughing, and they knew what it was—what I was saying. “I’m just kidding.” Of course, you know, part of you thinks, “Man, I should have gotten the filet mignon!” You know? But, of course, we’re all laughing about it. And we started getting the parking lot, and it was very hard to maneuver the carts because of bumps of ice and snow, and, without bags in the carts, stuff started falling out of people’s carts, and you could see everybody helping each other—holding on to other people’s carts in front of, behind them, helping them. And we all do this every day, but in that moment, it felt like I wanted to do even more. It’s just, you know, giving that—that act—when someone gives you an act of kindness and generosity for no reason. First you feel, I don’t know, a little guilty, because I never felt entitled, but I felt a little—not guilty. I don’t know what the right word is, but it felt like, “Wow, we didn’t deserve that!” Can I give to somebody else who made? Who they need help? You know? So, with that in mind, I got back to my car. We started driving home. We were talking about, “Wow, you don’t see that every day,” you know, “a store like H-E-B just did that for its customers.” So I told my wife, I said, “I’m going to write about this story, and I’m going to post it on Facebook and just share with a few of my friends.”

00:09:18
Speaker 1: And you’ve been listening to Tim Hennessy tell the story of an experience in a grocery store. When we come back, Texans, here on Our American Stories. And we continue with Our American Stories. And when we last left off, Tim Hennessy was about to post his experience in that grocery chain on Facebook, and let’s pick up what’s him.

00:09:50
Speaker 2: This last year, we’ve gotten bombarded with nothing but bad news, and maybe even the last decade or two, it just seemed like we got more and more bad news, because I just saw that as, “This is the America that I know and love,” and that’s what I was going to tell the story. This is the America I know and love, not the stuff you see in the newspaper, on the news all day, you know, all the time. So, and my wife was thinking about it for a second. She said, “Why don’t you just call it ‘The Heart of America’?” And I just liked what she said. It just hit me at them. I said, “You know what? That’s what I’m going to call it, because it kind of is more succinct.” “This is ‘The Heart of America.’ It truly is.” So then she said, “You know, Tim, I took a picture,” and I said, “You did?” She goes, “Yeah, I didn’t really want people to know who was taking it,” and she said, “I just want—” Through her tears, she said, “I—I just captured that moment for us.” It was just a unique thing to see. I said, “Well, send me that picture.” “I’ll include that with the post.” And I literally just wrote it. I actually gave it to my wife in a Word document. She’s my editor because I’m not the best speller. I hate to admit that. I read voraciously, but I cannot spell. For nothing. Thank you, God, for spellcheck! Like the word ‘separate,’ forget it. I put an EAI. I don’t know if it’s ‘e’ in the middle, ‘a.’ Anyway, I’m getting off topic here. So she edited it for me, and I just posted it. And then I think our power went out again a little while later. And then we woke up on that Wednesday after I posted it, and then sometime in the middle of the day, I thought, “Well,” we checked my Facebook post just to see, you know, what a couple of hundred my friends what they thought of that story. And I thought, “Oh my, how does this happen?” At that time, it was like twelve or thirteen thousand shares, a couple thousand comments, and probably ten thousand likes. And I’m like, “Oh, I don’t have that many friends!” “How does this happen? How does this happen?” And I actually called a friend of my daughters who works for Facebook, and I said, “Jesse, what the heck?” And she says, “What the heck?” I said, “Well, you’re supposed to; you’re the expert!” “Don’t tell me ‘what the heck’? How does this happen?” And she said, “I don’t know, Tim. I think the story hit a nerve at the right time. I think people needed to hear good news through all this.” So then—then I got worried. “Okay, I did not expect this to go like this!” I was literally sharing with a few friends. So I got worried. So I called the store, said, “Have you heard about a Facebook post about your store going viral?” He goes, “Yes, we did.” I said, “Is it okay?” And it was a manager. I asked for it, and I said, “Is it okay?” Because I didn’t really—I didn’t know this was going to happen. I didn’t want to get anybody in trouble. He said, “No, it’s all good, sir.” I got the impression, without him saying that, that it was a very positive thing for that store. Right. So, but I wanted to call their corporate office, too, for a couple of reasons. One, I wanted to double-check that it was okay, and two, I wanted to find out what their charities were. And so I got ahold of somebody there, and they said the local food bank is one of their charities. And also, they directed me to their website, and she also mentioned this place called Lady Lodge. It’s a family Christian-based camp where people go, and the donations help pay for families who can’t afford it, and there’s no cell service or internet. It’s literally ‘you’re going camping,’ and it’s a few hours away from us here in Texas. And so my wife and I wrote checks to both of them for more than what we would have paid in groceries, because we felt like this was such a great gesture. It was our way of giving back somehow, right? But the next day, that story just kept getting bigger and bigger, and it was over thirty thousand shares, thirty-two hundred comments, more likes than I could ever count. And then the phone started ringing. I got text messages, email messages, direct messages from various news organizations: CNN, Washington Post, Fox News, NBC, People Magazine—basically, the who of media. And then I still got a little bit nervous about it because I thought, “Well, I don’t want this company…” This is a very private company, very humble company. They do a lot for the community; H-E-B does a lot. They’re almost always—whenever there’s a disaster, they’re almost always the first there for water or food supplies. They very generous company in Texas, family-oriented. And so I called them one more time. I said, “You know, I’ve been doing these interviews.” “I don’t know if anybody saw it. But have somebody call me back and let me know if you want me to continue or stop, because I’ll stop today, because it’s not about me.” I just wanted to not necessarily promote the store, but just to show the goodness that there is in this country, because there are a lot of good things in this country. We see it every single day. We see it all across this country. We see it in our neighborhoods. How many of us go out every day? We help somebody. But it doesn’t make the news, because that’s what—that’s what we’re supposed to do. That’s what God wants us to do. That’s why we’re here. We’re here to be good to each other, right? And so they called me back—one of their corporate spokespeople called me back. I don’t know if it was the next day or that same day; I can’t remember. And we talked about a half hour on the phone, and he said, “Tim,” he goes, “Let me just tell you something.” He goes, “We’re not going to stop what you’re doing.” “We love what you’re doing!” “We’re getting a lot of phone calls right now about if that story is true or not, and all we do is tell them, ‘Yes, it happened,’ but that’s as far as they go.” And basically, because they don’t want to toot their own horn. They could easily—they could easily point to their back and go, “Look at the name of the—my back of my jersey!” This is H-E-B. Aren’t we great? But that’s not what they want to do. That’s how great of a company they are. Oh, I wanted to add one more thing. So, and this is for my wife. Just give her credit. This is my wife, Debbie. I have to give her a credit for this, because this is her. She says this all the time, and that’s why she took that picture, too. She says this following phrase: “God only needs a moment, right? God only needs a moment.” And—and—and in the phrase that I—one of my favorite quotes that I kind of lived my life by is from Albert Einstein, and it goes like this: “Live your life as if there are no miracles, or everything is a miracle.” I probably boss that quote; a little nervous right now. But, so I live it as if everything’s a miracle. And when you look for good things, you look for the miracles in life. It may seem silly to go, “Wow, you think it’s a miracle!” This guy let everything—these people walk out the store. I think it is. That’s what we look or the moments. And again, I got to give my wife credit for “God only needs a moment.” You look for these things; you see them everywhere. They don’t get reported all the time, but we see them. And I’ll give you an example of another moment or a miracle happened during the same week I saw the story. It was in San Antonio, Texas. I believe it was a Seven-Eleven, and there was either the owner or the manager who wrote this on Twitter. And she went to her store one morning, and all the water that was left out—outside on pallets—was missing. She said, “Over one hundred cases of water were missing.” And she thought, “Well, I guess people needed water because we were having issues.” So she understood it. And she goes to open the door of the Seven-Eleven, and there, on the floor, were six hundred and twenty dollars in all kinds of different denominational bills. So, in other words, it wasn’t just one person who just put in six hundred twenty dollars. They put—they slid through the slit of the door, not like a mail slot, you know, like some doors a mail—the slit of the door. They slid in six hundred and twenty dollars in ones, twos, tens, twenties, and there’s a picture of it. That is a miracle. Right? So, we see these all over the place. And I’ll give a couple other example. I don’t know if it’s a great example, but in my neighborhood, and probably all across Texas, people were out walking, u driving when we could, going house to house, checking out people.