Off topic: Angels, Once in a While

[Guest guest]

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, , 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 of 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.

--Barb Irwin

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ph A. Graff

Director of Digital Prepress

Graphic Communications, Inc.

(301) 599-2020

" The truth will set you free, but

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