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Mysterious Ways "To see a World in a Grain of Sand,
Jerry returned from his 12-hour work stint before Sharon or I stirred the following morning. Upon arising, we lingered over breakfast, chatting with our hosts. "Yeah," Jerry began, "Ruth and I have done some bike touring, too. On my Harley, that is. One summer, we rode through the States." He paused, reflecting. "In Tennessee we pretty much ran out of money. We were down to our last two dollars. It came to a choice of eating or buying a couple of bucks of gas. I figured I could earn a tank of gas by throwing bales for a farmer, so we decided to eat. "At a McDonald's I ordered a burger for me and a salad for Ruth. 'How come I only get a salad, and you get a burger?' she asked. 'Well,' I told her, 'all you have to do is sit and watch the bike while I throw bales.' "While we're sitting there eating, a guy comes over and asks me if that's my bike outside. 'It's the best I've ever seen!' he says. "At that point I began networking. I explained we were out of cash and asked him if he knew any farmers in the area that needed a hand for a day or two. "'I have an even better idea,' the guy says. He walks out the door, then comes back in a couple of minutes later. 'My wife says it's okay," he says. 'You can come over to our place.' "We stayed with Tom and his wife for three days," Jerry said. "When we left, Tom handed me $40 to buy gas so we could get home. Ruth and Tom's wife have been pen pals ever since." I hoped we never ran so short of cash we'd have to rely on complete strangers for handouts. "When I saw you guys at the gas station and that storm brewing to be a doozy," Jerry said, "it brought back memories. Kinda like payback time, I figured, for all the times people have done good deeds for us." Maybe we already were relying on complete strangers? "Another time," Jerry said, "I was at a bike rally in the States. Big, fat, hairy, American bikers were razzing us Canadians as usual. 'Wussy riders,' they called us. "At the time, I was working as a guard at Stony Mountain penitentiary and doing a few hours of weight lifting everyday. I guess you could say I was in pretty good shape. "I waited until the biggest fat-assed biker dude got onto his bike to do a beer run. I snuck up behind him, and lifted the fat bastard and his hog a couple of inches off the ground! "Fatty put it in gear ... but he didn't budge one inch. He revved his motor, but he still didn't move. He couldn't figure out what was going on. When he turned around, and saw me holding up both him and his bike, I tell ya, Fat Bastard looked surprised. I let go of his bike. He wobbled a little ways in the sand and fell over. "I figured he was going to kill me anyway, so I said, 'I thought you were telling us what a good rider you were!' Fat Bastard's friends looked at him sprawled ass-over-teakettle in the sand, and they started laughing real hard, falling all over themselves. Finally, Fatty started to laugh, too." After more reminiscing - and lunch - Sharon and I departed our new friends' home. We felt fortunate to have met and shared time with them - another instance where someone came along at precisely the right moment. (When accepting invitations, we tempered our enthusiasm by following our intuition. If either of us felt uncomfortable, we declined the offer.) Odd as it may seem, whenever we were down, someone invariably appeared and raised our flagging spirits. |
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