Angels, Once In A While
In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and
just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged
from three months to seven years; their sister was two. Their Dad
had never been much more than a presence they feared. Whenever they
heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to
hide under their beds.He did manage to leave 15 dollars a week to buy
groceries. Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more
beatings, but no food either.
If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that
time, I certainly knew nothing about it. I scrubbed the kids until
they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress. I
loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job.
The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our
small town. No luck. The kids stayed, crammed into the car and tried
to be quiet while I tried to convince whomever would listen that I
was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck.
The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old
Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop. It
was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named Granny owned the place and
she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She
needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the
morning. She paid 65 cents an hour and I could start that night. I
raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for
people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar
a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would
already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we
made a deal.
That night when and the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers
we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at the
Big Wheel. When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up
and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money-fully half of what I
averaged every night. As the weeks went by, heating bills added
another strain to my meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had
the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill
them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I
could go home. One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car
to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There
was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires.
Had angels taken up residence in Indiana? I wondered. I made a
deal with the owner of the local service station. In exchange for his
mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it
took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do
the tires. I was now working six nights instead of five and it still
wasn't enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money
for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing
and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there
would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes
were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys
pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.
On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big
Wheel. These were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper
named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion
and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all
just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then
left to get home before the sun came up. When it was time for me to go
home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning I hurried to the car. I was
hoping the kids wouldn't wake up before I managed to get home and get the
presents from the basement and place them under the tree. (We had
cut down a small cedar tree by the side of the road down by the dump.)
It was still dark and I couldn't see much, but there appeared to be
some dark shadows in the car-or was that just a trick of the night?
Something certainly looked different, but it was hard to tell what. When
I reached the car I peered warily into one of the side windows. Then my
jaw dropped in amazement. My old battered Chevy was full-full to the
top with boxes of all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the driver's
side door, scrambled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back
seat. Reaching back, I pulled off the lid off the top box. Inside was a
whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another
box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside
some of the other boxes: There were candy and nuts and bananas and
bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned
vegetables and potatoes.
There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There
was a whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were
five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll. As I drove back through
empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day
of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the
joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning. Yes, there
were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out
at the Big Wheel truck stop.
I BELIEVE IN ANGELS! They live next door, around the corner, work in
your office, patrol your neighborhood, call you at midnight to hear
you laugh and listen to you cry, teach your children, and you see them
everyday without even knowing it!
Love - Words