Well, here is a story about helping someone, and things went right for a change.
Many moons ago, when I was sixteen, I had been out hunting in the Gifford Pinchot Forest, located about 40 miles north of my hometown of BattleGround Wa. It was a rainy old day, typical of the weather in Washington, and I was looking forward to a nice hot shower and some dry clothes.
As I came around a bend in the rural road, up on the hill above the road was a gravel road that curled its way down to the main road, and as I lazily scanned the scenery, I noticed a grey car up on the road, listing at a strange angle. I thought it was odd, the angle of the car, where it was at, and above all, the strange luxury vehicle where only a truck should be. I decided to swing around and check it out.
As I approached the vehicle, I noticed a middle aged woman behind the wheel, staring out the windshield with what appeared to be a look of fear on her face. I got out of the truck, and making my way to the drivers door, I noted that the large luxury vehicle had slipped off the road into the ditch, more or less pinning the drivers door shut against the hill side. Seeing that there was no way of opening the door, I went back around to the passengers side where the lady popped open the door to talk to me.
She had been crying, that was plain to see. Makeup ran down her face, and if it had been any darker out there I am sure the sight might have made my whiskers wiggle at the notion that perhaps I had run across one of them female forest trolls that my grandpa had always warned me about. But after realizing that indeed she didnt have any fangs showing, and that it appeared to just be makeup, I got close enough to talk.
With a shaky voice, she explained that she had been up the gravel road early in the morning before the rain started to look at some property that her and her husband had planned on buying and developing, and that on the way down the rain had started and the road got slippery. Just as she thought she was going to make it down the hill okay, her car slipped and into the ditch she went.
After looking at the car, I realized that if I tried to pull the thing out of the ditch from the downhill side, it would do nothing more than slide down the ditch, and ten feet from the car the ditch got deep enough that most likely the car would roll over on its side. The only other option would be to pull the vehicle back out the way it came, and there was no way I was going to squeeze past her with my truck. There was barely five feet from the passenger door to the edge of the road. I told her that she would have to ride with me to the nearest town of Cougar, and from there we could get a tow truck that could lift her car as well as pull to get it out of the ditch. She agreed, reached for her briefcase, and carefully crawled out the passenger door.
Promptly her high heel shoes sunk in the mud, and with a quiet groan to myself I got down on my knees and removed her shoes and offered to carry her, although in retrospect she probably weighed more than I did. With a giggle, she said she would walk to the truck barefooted seeing as how her clothes were ruined already with the steady downpour. Just as we started to make our way to the truck, with a squeal her bare feet went out from under her, and she hit the ground, close enough to the edge to make me catch my breath.
She moved fast, I will give her that. On all fours she scurried to her car, flung the door open, and jumped into the safety of her car. She assured me at that point that she was not getting out of that car for love or money. I then told her that it was time to call a pro, and told her I would go into town and call a wrecker. Slogging my way back to my truck, I grabbed my lunchbox and thermos, handed them to her, and told her I would be back in an hour. As I drove away, I quietly thought, "wow, is she ever going to be surprised at what is in my lunchbox. Venison steak sandwich, some Cheetos that had seen better days, chocolate covered raisins, (I always ate them when deer hunting for luck, its a long story) and a thermos of hot chocolate. I dont and never have drank coffee.Another long story.
I made it into town, stopped at the little store, and tried calling for help. Cougar was a one horse town out in the middle of nowhere, and nobody from BattleGround was willing to come that far on the twisting turning back roads.Back to the woman I went.
I explained the situation, and again tried to get her to get out of the car, but she wasnt budging. I explained until my fingernails fell off that she was in no danger of falling off the hill if she stayed close to the car, but she refused. Then I had an idea. I told her that the road that she was on went on over the hill and rejoined a different county road, and that with some luck I could go around the hill on the paved road, and come down to her from the top, and with the winch I should be able to pull her back on the road, but it was going to take some time.She agreed, and off I went.
It took me an hour and half to get around the hill and back down to where she was, and another thirty minutes to pull her out of the ditch, but finally we made to the bottom of the hill where she stopped her car and was obviously waiting for me to come to her car. Seeing as how I couldn't get any wetter, I swam my way down to her car and she motioned for me to get in the passenger side.
It sure was a nice car, nicer than anything I have ever been in, but then again I reckon I was rather biased. The nicest car I had ever been was an ambulance, so I reckon any wealthy persons car would look nice to me. I felt bad about my wet and muddy clothes, but she assured me that she had already soiled the interior up enough she would probably be forced to buy a new car. I agreed, I always tossed my truck once it got dirty. At least when I was dreaming about hitting the big time after winning the lottery.
At any rate, she said she wanted to pay me for my time and trouble, and after pulling out her wallet, she tried to hand me a hundred dollar bill, and I was floored. I had never seen a hundred dollar bill before, at least not a real one. Anything bigger than a 20 was beyond my scope, and I always figured who ever invented the game of Monopoly sure was making up some #### when he included a $500 bill.
I held that bill in my hands a good while.I smelled it,it smelled real. Even with her perfume on it, it smelled real. I began to think about all the neat stuff I could buy with that thing. Hell, I could probably flash that thing on Monday at school and finally convince Laura,my secret high school crush, that she ought to go out with me instead of laughing and tossing french fries at me. I would be a big man! But then I remembered what my grandfather and my mother had taught me. Never take payment for helping someone out. It aint right. With a sigh, I handed it back, told her I enjoyed holding that money and sitting in her fancy car, but I dont accept money for helping out. Especially a fortune like that.
With a laugh, she said, "Honey, I spend more than that at a beauty salon" and I said yes maam, I reckon you do cause you are very pretty, but I was taught never to take money for helping out someone. She looked at me for awhile, the startled me with, "you have no idea who I am, do you?"
I had no idea, and told her so. With a laugh, she said, "honey, dont you read the newspaper, or watch TV?"
Nope.Dont have time to read the paper, and we dont own a TV.
She sat for awhile, then said she would like to at least send me a proper thank you card, and asked for my address. I wrote it down for her, picked up my lunchbox and thermos, and told her to have a nice day that I had better be headed home for evening chores. She kissed me on the forehead, and thanked me again for the help.
Months later, Christmas rolled around, and my mother told me that I had gotten a letter in the mail. For me, this was unusual. I didn't get mail. Who in the hell gets mail when you are sixteen? I never did. But there on the kitchen table was a nice little envelope with my name on it. It had no return address, and smelled like a girl. As I sniffed it, my mom smiled and asked me who she was. I had no idea, so I tore open the envelope and inside was a card.
Opening it, I found two $100 bills inside, with a note. It said, "Thank you for the wonderful lunch. I haven't had Cheetos since I was a teenager, and they were very good."
To this day, I have no idea who she was, but every year until I turned 25 those cards showed up, promptly two weeks before Christmas. And I spent every dime of that money buying Christmas presents for my mother and my grandfather until he passed away when I was 20. Figured that was the only way to spend that money.
