Alone at an Outback Steakhouse dinner table on a Saturday night, Miss Dorothy quietly nibbled on her food. She didn't say a word to anyone except when her waitress came around.
Though she was using an oxygen tank, she made every effort to be unnoticed.
With her walker folded underneath her table, she kept to herself the entire night - even while the nearby table full of firefighters from Massachusetts were enjoying the drinks and food that she'd eventually pay for.
The firefighters - who attended the 29th annual Fallen Fire Fighter Memorial during the day - were stunned. And flattered. After their waitress told them their dinner of at least $150 was free, they asked, "By who and why?" They found out later that it was Miss Dorothy. Apparently, she told their waitress to not say a word about her picking up their tab until after she left the restaurant with her walker in hand.
One of the firefighters, Mark Byron, tried to track her down. But he couldn't find her.
"For a little old lady," he said, "she walks pretty fast."
She had disappeared into the night.
Looking back, Byron remembers his waitress going over to Miss Dorothy's table several times to talk. And that's probably when the woman found out the men sitting next to her were firefighters, he said. Byron thought they knew each other, and that they were just catching up.
A couple of days later, the firefighters were still thinking about Miss Dorothy's kindness. They never had such an encounter working as firefighters in Massachusetts. Byron works at the Ashland Fire Department, and the rest of his dinner mates Saturday night are firefighters in nearby Framingham. They said occasionally someone would buy them coffee or a pastry, and they'd always appreciate the offer. But never before had someone paid for a meal, let alone an entire table's meals.
On Monday morning, some of the firefighters made one last visit to the firefighter memorial in Memorial Park before they had to catch their flights back home. They were still trying to understand why someone who they believed was likely on a fixed income would pay the dinner tab of 10 big, hungry firefighters.
So Byron spent his last few hours in Colorado Springs on Monday reaching out to the local media, in an effort to share the woman's selfless act of paying it forward. This was his way of saying thank you to her.
And every time he comes to Colorado Springs for the annual firefighter memorial, he feels the love from the locals. This was his fourth time at the event. Oftentimes, they'd simply tell him and his fellow firefighters, "Thank you." That was more than enough, he said.
"We want to give recognition for what the lady did for us and for what the city did for us," he said.
On Saturday, thousands of people attended the annual ceremony at the remodeled memorial to honor 7,352 fallen first responders whose names are etched into the granite walls.
When Byron and his fellow firefighters went out to dinner that night, they just wanted to enjoy themselves. They went to the Outback Steakhouse near Hotel Elegante, where they stayed for a few days. They didn't make themselves known. They weren't in uniform. They wore everyday clothes - jeans and shirts. They wanted to enjoy themselves after a somber day of honoring fallen firefighters and paramedics.
"We mourn them during the day, but we celebrate them at night," said retired Framingham firefighter Bob Delaney, whose brother-in-law, Michael Urban, died in the line of duty in 2011.
Unbeknownst to Byron, Delaney and the other firefighters, an elderly woman would take care of their celebration Saturday night.
After their waitress told the firefighters their meals were free, Byron wanted to find the woman. He never did. But he did learn about her. Outback Steakhouse management told him she was staying at a nearby hotel because her house was being repainted. He learned that she was known as Miss Dorothy, and that she was a regular.
So Byron handed $40 to the manager and said Miss Dorothy's meal would be covered the next time she visited the restaurant.
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©2015 The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.)
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