Neal Rubin: Former teacher offers kindness as a crusade — and on a T-shirt

Mary Keyser asked specifically that I not praise her overmuch. Or, to quote her directly, "Don't make me sound wonderful."

On Random Acts of Kindness Day in February, she went to the Chick-fil-A in Novi and handed $10 bills to people waiting in the endless drive-thru line.

Keyser, 57, is a retired Redford Union High School English teacher who says, "I'm not all that kind. I'm just OK."

On World Kindness Day one November, she bought popcorn for everyone who caught a movie at the Farmington Civic Theater.

I met her two weekends ago at the annual Art on the Grand fair in Farmington, where she was selling kindness-themed T-shirts, sweatshirts and totes to raise money to do further gracious things. "I function on guilt," she says cheerfully. "Good Catholic guilt."

She has donated school supplies to Orchards Children's Services, replaced a local boy's stolen scooter, and spent a Valentine's Day wandering downtown Farmington with a huge basket of free candy bars.

People tend to thank her, which speaks well for their upbringing. One woman at Chick-fil-A even cried. But she'll tell you this is not about being thanked, praised, saluted or recognized, or getting to eat leftover candy.

Rather, Keyser says, the object is for niceness to beget niceness. For recipients of a kindness to perpetrate kindnesses of their own, large or small, personal or purchased. For goodness to go viral, as if it were as crucial as Pokemon GO or a kitten video.

"You get the opportunity to hand out bunches of gift cards to people who weren't expecting it," she says. "Who wouldn't want that gig?"

More from Neal Rubin 1 kidney, 2 lives —a donor's generosity impresses everyone but himself

An imperfect fit

Keyser's oversized booth at the art fair was awash in bright colors and optimistic mottos. The most popular slogan shares the name of her website and Facebook page: "A Kinder World. I'm In."

There's also "Be Kind," "Be Nice" and, for small children, "Kind Person in Training." She used to offer "Kindness. Spread It Like Peanut Butter," but she says "it didn't sell very well," which is too bad.

Truth is, it's unclear how many of her designs earn their keep. You'll see lesser quality objects at higher rates than what she charges − tote bags $12, T-shirts $15, sweatshirts $20, hoodies $25, with a small markup online for shipping − but she has resisted strong suggestions to raise prices.

"Mary," says her son-in-law, Phil Clark, "your business sense is terrible."

True, she says. Also, she's not particularly good at selling.

"I guess when I came up with the idea," she concedes, "I didn't think that part through."

But she has a pension, and a husband who shares her interest in spreading sunshine even if he wishes she were better at bookkeeping.

She and Paul Buchanan live in Farmington, where he owns a funeral home and a nearby extra house where she uses two bedrooms to stash her merchandise and display racks.

He'd been her middle school crush, though it wasn't reciprocated, and then eight years ago she was walking off an elevator with her mom at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital when he was walking on to fill a prescription for his dad.

He was standing in the background on a steamy afternoon at Art in the Grand while Mary Alice Flanagan-Conser, a retired special ed teacher from Novi, tried on a light blue T-shirt.

"The world needs to be kinder," Flanagan-Conser said. "More peace. More love."

Furthermore, she said, regarding the special Sunday price of two tees for $20, "Are you kidding? That's too cheap."

More from Neal Rubin Michigan dad behind new distracted driving laws isn't done

Learning by example

Keyser grew up in Redford Township, where her dad was routinely and quietly generous.

Jim Rex sold tools to the auto industry, and she remembers him going to the car after a Christmas morning breakfast to fetch bags of Germack pistachios for the waitresses. Another day in another restaurant, he picked up the tab for a table of kids with special needs.

"He wasn't looking for recognition," Keyser says, and neither is she. But she couldn't very well duck the question when I asked, so she told me about giving away 225 "Kindness Always" yard signs at the apex of the pandemic and sending shirts and tote bags to front-line workers.

Recently, says her daughter, Katie Clark, "We went to a show downtown and she tried to give the parking lot attendant a box of Girl Scout cookies."

Come to find out that Thin Mints are not a universal language; the attendant preferred shortbreads, so he said no thanks. What mattered was that the gesture registered, and planted the notion of being helpful or generous without provocation.

The deeper she went into her teaching career, Keyser says, "the more it seemed really popular to be negative."

In response, she'd tell her students, "Someday I'm going to make it cool to be nice to each other."

That remains a work in progress, but it's a quest that fits her to a tee.

Reach Neal Rubin at NARubin@freepress.com, or via Twitter at @nealrubin_fp.

To subscribe to the Free Press, a kind thing and also a rewarding one, click here.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Retired teacher spurs kindness with generosity — and sportswear