My Guardian Angel

A couple of weekends ago, one of my best friends was getting married up in Leesburg, Virginia. After working a long, hard week of work last week, I was anticipating the relaxation that was going to be taken place. One of my friends from Indiana flew down for the wedding, so he asked me to take him to the airport after the wedding. Being the decent friend that I am, I told him that’d be ok; therefore I had to drive up by myself to the wedding on Friday night. The car ride playlist consisted of “Perfectly Lonely,” “Long Trip Alone,” “All by Myself,” and “One is the Loneliest Number.” You get the point. As Three Dog Night hits a higher octave, tears fill my eyes, and then I hear metal screeching against the pavement. Flat tire. Right smack dab middle of the trip. I’m an hour and a half from home and an hour and a half from Leesburg.

 

I had to pull over off the side of the highway next to a railroad track. As I’m putting on the spare tire a train comes racing by which scares the living daylights out of me. And no, I did not get as excited as this guy. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I was fuming. Then, I remembered what my father once told me, “Josh, people will not judge you by the storms in your life, but by how you handle the storms.” So I rolled up my sleeves and got down to business. This was my first time changing a tire. Once I finished installing the tire, I felt accomplished. So proud. As I’m lowering the card down from the jack, I see that the spare tire was flat which was fitting to this trip. I laughed in disgust, and then all of a sudden a 6 foot 50 year old bearded man, named Chris, with hair flowing from his chest out of his shirt came to my rescue.

 

“You got it all figured out?” Chris, said.  “Nope.” I said in frustration. “Here get in the car. I’ll take ya ta Sheetz down the road there. We can put some air in the spare.” Chris was a poet and he didn’t even know it (see what I did there). Actually, we had a pretty good conversation both to the Sheetz and back. I told him I just graduated from Liberty University, which most of the time, brings up all sorts of discussion. He actually enjoyed Liberty University because they weren’t scared to speak their mind. Chris gave me many bits of wisdom in our 20 minute car ride together. I appreciated Chris and I needed company at the time. One might call him a godsend. Whatever he was, Chris was a pretty solid dude. As we get back to the place where my car was, Chris gets out of his beater, in which I slipped a $20 bill in between the driver’s seat and the passenger’s seat. We put the spare tire back on, say our goodbyes, and as I’m starting the car, waiting right outside my window is Chris with my $20 bill in hand. How he got there that fast, I still don't know. Chris wanted me to roll down my window, but I told him to just keep it and thanked him for his service with the window still rolled up. Chris proceeded to open my car door and gave me my money back and said, “I don’t take kid’s monies.” Chris, wherever you are, you’re a swell of a guy.