Helping Strangers

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3MR

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Jun 14, 2006
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Oklahoma
I just read a post on another thread that made me think of this and I thought I would share.

I was driving home on a Sat or Sun a few weeks ago and passed a truck with a couple in it sitting by a drive about a 1/2 mile from my place. I didnt think to much of it as I know up the drive was a house and I figured they were waiting on somebody. The guy in the drivers seat waived as I drove past.

I get home and start repairing a fence along the road the cows had broke through that morning. (Thats another story)

Anyway, about an hour into it I hear this couple comig down the road walking. The guy is complaining that he couldnt believe nobody stopped to help them.

Of course I ask them if they need some help. Turns out the fuel gauge on their truck is broke and they ran out of gas. They tried to call some people, but then the cell phone went dead. They also didnt have any money.

They lived in a town clear across the county and were trying to walk home. We are talking about 25 miles.

Anyway, I felt so bad for not stopping when I saw them I went and got them 5 gl of gas to get home.

They said they would pay me for the gas. They havent yet, but I also told them not to make a special trip just to do it.

Im not really worried about it. About 15 years ago I remember a shagy looking young man, not dressed very well at all who ran out of gas on his bike one night on a very secluded country road. As I sat their cursing my luck I saw the most beat up old truck you could imagine coming down an intersecting dirt road. It pulle dup next to me and a guy, who I swear was off the cover of "Uncle Toms Cabin" got out, reached into the back without saying a word and produced an old round metal gas can.

Turns out he had been sitting on his front porch up the hill watching the night and heard me run out of gas.

I offered to pay for the gas, but he wouldnt hear of it. He just mumbled something about what comes around goes around and told me that I should help someone when I could.

I have no idea how many times that old man made that trip down that hill with the can of gas in is life, but I am willing to bet each trip got him a step higher toward those pearly gates.

Instead of cursing my bad luck for running out of gas, I should have been cursing my stupidity for running out of gas and good luck for running out where I did.

I think about this experience everytime I see that commercial on television where the good turn makes a full circle and improves everyboddies day in the process.
 
Your right about it comes back around to you. I live next to the main road from the west side of Washington to Washington State Univ. in eastern Washington. I never fails when students are headed to WSU that at least one will run out of gas. Most you never hear from again, but occasionally one will send a card or drop off some goodies. I've been on the recieving end a time or two and hope that if my kids have problems someone will help them.

Bobg
 
I stopped to help a group of kids that had broke down a few miles out of town. Turns out they were 4 hrs from home had a flat tire and didn't have a jack to change it. While I was getting the Jack out of my truck he was cussing himself for being dumb and going on a long trip without a jack. I told him about my story of getting a flat and not being able to find the key to the rim cover lock. I had stranded myself and three friends on vacation in the middle of the desert in New Mexico. Didn't have cell phones back then but a guy stopped and had the tools to get the lock off. Every now and then every gets caught with their pants down.

Walt
 
3MR, good for you! And I love that commercial you're talking about. :D

You know, when you stop to think about it, everybody on this board helps a "stranger" every day in one way or another - advice on a sick cow, what to feed an orphaned calf, how to doctor a horse with a cut, etc.
 
yeah i dont know. i was at the gas station a few months ago and this couple drove up next to me and asked if i could spare them a few dollars to get some gas with, that they were in their daughters car and she had let it almost run out and that she had gone out with some friends the night before and never came home and they were going to look for her. (its about 20 miles to the nearest bank and the town they were going to) so i felt bad about them not knowing about their daughter and i gave them a few dollars to get gas with. he pulled in and went to pay for it and came out and started pumping gas. i went inside to pay for mine and came back out and they were gone. i looked out of curiousity to see how much gas he got. he got $2 worth. so i'm already pretty cynical anway b/c of situations like this where i try to do good and just get had.
 
Beefy you have karma written all over you.You are just a good hearted person.Please don't become disheartened by the bad apples.You have something many people will never know and that is compassion and empathy.That is why you can make a picture of a flip flop look beautiful.Your character always comes through.
 
I gave a couple $20 to buy gas (yeah, right) at a Bob Evans parking lot on the S side of Indy. I wish I hadn't. They had kids in the car, and I'm a sucker.
I'm an old country boy, and people wouldn't ask unless they were absolutely desperate when I grew up. Now people make a career out of begging. Time has passed me by.
 
If someone ask me for money they usually wont get anything, but If I see a need I will usually offer to help. Its sort of like picking up a hitch hiker. ( Im not recomending anybody do this mind you and I woul dhave a fit if I found out my wife picked someone up, but I used to hitch a lot so I sort of feel like I need to pay the world back.) Anyway, sitting on your butt along side the road with a sign is a good way not to get me to pick you up. Walking down the road in the the direction you want to go will get you a ride. If your not willing to use your own energy to get where you want to go, why should I let you use my gas. Maybe I am a little weird on these things, but it works for me.
 
The road that I live on just happens to be the back way from town to the crack houses in the next county (Macon County.) It seems that I find abandoned cars about once a week within a mile of the house, out of gas. I guess with cell phones they call someone to come get them because none have walked the ¼ mile up the drive to knock on my door. The dogs barking may help with that.
Some of those cars will sit there a week or more. I had one almost blocking my drive that sat for 3 days before I hooked the tractor to and drug it ½ mile down the road. It was gone the next day.
 
One Christmas Eve I was on my way home from a friends house. I stopped at a little store that also serves as a bus stop for Grey Hound. Well the bus had stopped there and the people were out buying food and stretching their legs. In the store I noticed a young lady counting her pennies (literally) and looking at food. After some discussion I bought her some food. She never asked, I offered. I figured a young lady traveling by herself, by bus, on Christmas Eve, and counting her pennies could use a little help. I left feeling good about myself and Christmas.
However, I never give people money for gas or food. I will buy it for them. I never take payment back. I tell them what goes around comes around and for them to help someone else in the future.
 
yeah, yeah, bring me lots of stuff Beefy. I promise I will be better next year.
 
Last year a guy gave me the opportunity to use a line that I had alwasy wanted to use. He had run out of gaus a little way up the road. I was headed to town so I stopped to help him. We came back here, got a gas can, drove into town and got gas and came back to his truck. He paid for the gas so I wasn;t out anything that really mattered. The head of the group that the guy beonged to came by and asked how much he owed me. These folks are from St, Louis. I said "You aren;t from around here are you" got in my truck and went to town to do waht I had started to do. In this area, the only ones that would expect to be paid or wouldn;t stop to help someone are not farmers or rural oriented.
 

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