I was walking on the seawall last Sunday and bumped into my friend, Bruce Mitchell, the recently retired principal of Dover Bay high school.

"I've been meaning to call you," Bruce said, "to tell you about a Neighbourhood Heroes fan I met a while ago."

It seems this fellow likes the column because it talks about average, everyday folks and it gives readers an opportunity to nominate people they know as Neighbourhood Heroes.

Well that certainly was one of the major goals of this column when it was started. I hoped readers would want to publicly acknowledge friends or family members who are Neighbourhood Heroes. Such acknowledgement, I believe, encourages even more Neighbourhood Hero-like behaviour.

Over time, I envisioned this column changing at least our part of the world for the better ... one small step at a time.

But that isn't exactly what's happened. Good things have definitely happened but the nominations aren't rolling in by the hundreds ... or even the tens. We're talking single digits.

I know the Neighbourhood Heroes are out there. I have a file full of stories to be told ... and I haven't gone out of my way to find the people behind those stories - They're just stories I happen to bump into in my day-to-day life.

Now, if I just happen to meet or hear about seventy or more Neighbourhood Heroes in a year and a half, and there are thousands of people reading this column who are likely to be meeting just as many, why am I not overwhelmed with nomination forms or phone calls?

I think there are two main reasons.

First of all, it seems human nature leads most of us to focus our attention on neighbourhood crooks rather than neighbourhood heroes and most of our media have picked up on that. In fact, the Nanaimo Daily News is one of the very few newspapers in this country that makes an effort to have a positive story on the front page, through the "Good Morning, Good News" feature - they also, of course, carry this column.

The second reason we have few nominations from readers, I believe, is that when we do notice the "Neighbourhood Heroes" in our midst, we tend to tuck that information away in the back of our minds as an, "Isn't that nice" thought, and then get back to the "more important things in our busy life" forgetting that friends and family are most important of all.

So, since I'm sure you have your priorities straight, why don't you nominate one of your parents, grandparents, siblings, son's, daughters, workmates, teachers, neighbours or friends today ... right now? Imagine how that person would feel and how that one simple act might change relationships and encourage even more Neighbourhood Hero-like behaviour.

Getting back to Bruce Mitchell. When this column first started, Bruce told me about a senior citizen he used to see on his way to work. Every morning this man would be out for his constitutional, carrying a plastic bag and picking up any garbage he discovered along the way.

"Those are the cleanest streets in Nanaimo," Bruce exclaimed at the time.

Sadly, soon after he told me the story, something must have happened to that man and Bruce never saw him again.

So today, I proclaim Bruce Mitchell a Neighbourhood Hero for noticing the positive actions of others and perhaps for inspiring you to not only notice but to actually nominate someone you know as a Neighbourhood Hero.

I also want to pay homage to the unknown senior whose story, as short as it has been, just might inspire someone else to do something similar.