Most People Are Good: A Stranger's Four-Word Gift

Caitlin Shetterly, a storyteller used to collecting others' experiences, became the subject of one herself when a stranger on a plane told her, “Most people are good.” Newly pregnant and still carrying post‑9/11 flying anxiety, she found those four words disarmed a fear no safety statistic could touch. Over the years she offered the same line to others, and it became part of her household language. When the 2023 Lewiston shooting devastated her community, those words resurfaced: her husband used them to comfort their son. The episode traces how a casual act of kindness echoed through nearly a decade and held up in the face of real horror.