Sometimes life takes a sudden turn, and the genorosity of others is welcomed.
Recently I was heading from I-95 across Rt 84 to the southern part of Georgia, when suddenly an approaching old blue car's front tire blew off, and began a high speed dance of diseaster down the highway.
Seeing the tire blast past my driver's side window I thought I was safe. Then BAM! BRRRESH,CLANK, CLANK...BOOM as I noticed the large chrome cylinder from the hubcap fly out from under the passenger side.
The damage? My front right tire was a flat mass of rubber, and barely on the rim while the under fender resembled shredded wheat. And did I not have a hupcap somewhere?
"Great!", I ungraciously thought more focused on the bother of the event instead of giving thanks for its lack of severity.
Upon seeing the other victim my gratefulness returned. His whole front end twisted inward and the trickle of water dripping from the radiator looked like the car was weeping.
But where was the offending car?. How had the driver taken off on only three tires? Was he a stunt driver? Squnting about a 1/ 2 mile up the road I could make out the car but no one was headed in my direction. So I reached for my cell phone, and immediately groaned.
Four hours earlier I realized my neglect to charge up the cell phone battery. In the comfort of the early morning it had been just an annoying oversight. Now on a cold, gray strip of Georgia highway my error magnified ten-fold. Luckily my fellow victim had already called the police.
The next hour was consumed with the car's driver arriving flustered at the damage and unwilling to supply the necessary paperwork, a county cop and a Georgia state trooper. The latter two seemed a bit bemused at my requests for a local car repair shop and an official accident report.
"We'll just have you towed into the nearest town and you can put a patch on it," was the first law officer's response to fixing my tire. Now I'm no mechanical genius but somehow the tire's pancake like appearance did not convince me a simple patch job was sufficient for an 8 hour journey home.
"You want an accident report?" asked the trooper.
Apparently I was ignorant of the fact that in Georgia (and other states as I have since learned) you have to PAY before you receive an accident report and even then you have to wait several days until the report has been filed.
As the wind blew harder and my temper began to spike when kind stranger #1 stepped up.
A young guy, from a local auto customizing shop, pulled a huge jack out of his shop and across a ditch to assist me in putting on the doughnut tire.
He refused any money simply saying; "Just pass along the kindness."
Gingerly I merged back onto the road and within minutes a new scheeching sound erupted from underneath, and as I crossed the city limits of Hinesville, a burnt rubber smell was filling my interior.
I was windblown, and a bit crazed as I stepped into the local Chevy dealership festooned with University of Georgia bulldog mascots. Nightmares of inflated estimates on replacing the parts for my foreign car danced in my head.
I don't know it was my lunatic appearance, my rapid fire Yankee accented yapping or just the goodness in the hearts of Hinesvillites - but they took pity on me. I was assured the burnt rubber smell was coming from the shredded underfender, everything under the hood looked okay and they had the right sized tire, I was offered Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a place to recharge my phone.
A lovely young lady, from the front office told me about some of her favorite places in Georgia and when I get near Callaway and Augusta I will remember her.
My quota of kind strangers kept growing. When the service manager shaved $20.00 off the original estimate. I repaid him by telling him my one and only bulldog story.
But as I drove on to Valdosta where my schedule had messed up the plans of the obliging CVB rep, I kept thinking of my first strangers' request. When given a kindness - pass it along.
I was given the opportunity before the end of the day, and after I gave the kindness all the frustration of the day melted.
So my advice is to pass along any kindnesses you encounter in this world. And always keep your battery charged.
