The pulled pork sandwich, with onion, of course, is pretty darn good at The Big Yellow mobile kitchen in the Goodwill parking lot on Fourth Street in midtown Coeur d'Alene.

Even better is the guy who cooks them.

The lunchtime rush was subsiding Wednesday when Tim Patterson removed the sterile glove on his right hand and reached through a small window to shake a customer's outstretched paw.

"I'll bet I shook 50 hands this morning," he said.

Business was "crazy," he said - and he meant in a good way.

"I found out a few people read the newspaper," he said.

Wednesday's Press featured on its front page Patterson's story within a story. Coeur d'Alene police had reported the attempted armed robbery Monday afternoon of a female Goodwill employee who was held with a knife to her throat in the parking lot, but omitted a critical fact.

"A witness came out of the store, and saw the altercation taking place," the police department's press release said. "The witness shouted at the suspect and the suspect took off on foot running south through the alley way between 4th St. and 5th St."

After hearing a woman scream, the witness in this case came not out of the store, but out of the bright yellow lunch wagon. And Tim Patterson was wielding a gun, which he pointed at the perp's head and shouted, "Drop it, or I'll shoot you."

Damn right the bad guy dropped his knife and ran.

Patterson's quick reaction might have saved the woman's life, but it put the police department in an awkward position. A police spokesperson said witnesses should assess an emergency situation and decide whether it's safe for them to get involved.

We understand that's what the police must say. But we also know that too many people refuse to answer a call for help in the first place, and when the rare hero does, there usually isn't time to assess squat.

Tim Patterson strikes us as the kind of man who will do what must be done and worry about the consequences later. The world would be a better place with more Tim Pattersons unhesitatingly answering the call of duty. As he showed, heroism can happen anytime, anywhere, even between servings of pulled pork and pastrami sandwiches.