From the Editor: this is from our Lenten Transformation Stories series
By Carol C.
It was August 1974. I was a single mom, living in Chicago. My three children were 8, 10 and 13. We had driven 500 miles from Chicago to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to visit my parents and were on our way home.
We had just gotten onto the Ohio Turnpike when a red light appeared on the dashboard. At the next service plaza, I pulled off to have a mechanic see what the problem was. I had taken an auto mechanics class at Adult Ed, not so much because I had plans to tune up my car, but I wanted to have some notion of what was there beneath the hood of the car. One of the things we had been advised in the class was that if we were in an emergency situation, pay close attention to the mechanic, because they could sometimes be less than scrupulous.
So I stood there by the engine watching the mechanic while my kids went in for a snack. I was joined by a truck driver who seemed to be interested in what was going on with my car. As the mechanic finished up and was about to close the hood, I said, “Don’t you want to replace the distributor cap?” The truck driver commented that if I hadn’t said anything about it, he would have because he noticed it too. He said he would follow me for a few miles to make certain everything was OK, if I didn’t mind.
He followed me for about 50 miles and when he was probably assured everything was alright, he beeped his horn and passed by.
He had just disappeared from sight when liquid spewed all over the windshield. I pulled off onto the shoulder, opened the hood and peered inside, where I noticed there was a gash in one of the hoses. I had no idea what to do about that! We were there just a few minutes when a young man pulled up to assist. He was on his way to a spelunkers gathering in Iowa, and he knew what to do. He gave my older son a large plastic container and sent him off to a farm house for water. He took out a knife and began cutting away at the hoses. “You won’t be needing your heater for awhile,” he said, as he cut the hoses here and there, clamping and re-directing them. “This should be good enough for you to get home.”
As he was working, a state patrol car came in the opposite direction, made a U-turn and pulled up in front of us. Out of the patrol car stepped the truck driver. “I got over the brow of the hill and didn’t see you behind me, so I was concerned and decided to check things out. This time I think I’ll follow you for a longer stretch of road.”
And so he did. We shared a meal somewhere along the highway. He followed me across the 230 miles or so of the Ohio Turnpike. He followed me across the 150 or so miles of the Indiana Toll Road, until the Chicago Skyway cuts off and I-80 continues west. There are times when it is very reassuring to have an 18-wheeler riding on your tail in a non-intimidating way.
My husband Andy and I have discussed this event. He raised the question of whether this was the result of the kindness of strangers or whether it was a random act of kindness. Did these gentlemen act as a one-time gesture or was it part of the fabric of their lives? I won’t ever know the answer to that question, but I know remember their acts of kindness that day in 1974 as if it happened yesterday.
God is good.