Jour59b

A day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
-- NOT--
Vacations: the good the bad and the ugly

Lesson # 14499b cd

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Last entry: Aida w/ Alma

So as I said I got a book out of the car, bought a drink and waited in the shade of a sign. I stand, moving w/ the shade for over an hour when there is still no sign of her. I wait a little more and decide to go back up and call her again. This time I get her machine. I leave a message and go back out to wait. Again I wait and I wait. The day is getting hotter, I am getting more and more tired and irritable and yet no Alma. I am not at all irritated w/ her, she I am sure is on her way. I am quite irritated with the situation as a whole. I can already tell this is the death nell of my trip. The day is getting hotter, I am gett more and more tired and I am stuck. There is no worse feeling than to feel as if the intire situation is out of your hands, totally and completely helpless. I know this situation is nothing compaired to being in a war zone or starving to death in a drought but none the less I feel utterly useless. When I first spoke to Alma she asked if the car was still in the road. I told her that yes it was, she then asked if anyone had stopped to help me I told her no, and that seeing that I was stuck in a suburbian town on a holiday when traffic was going to be light that I as a black man stranded alone on a little used exit stop I had no expectation of help beeing offered. This may sound cynical and I don't normally consider myself cynical but that is how I felt. If in these situations you expect the least and get something more then you should be thankful, if on the other hand you expect people to be kind and decent and you don't get it then you will find yourself dejected and disappointed.

I am still waiting, and the shade is getting shorter so I finally decide to wait it out in the car. Finally a Highway patrolman stops to see what the matter is. I tell him I am waiting for assistance but was unable to move the car on my own. He assists me in getting it out of the lane of traffic and wishes me luck. So at least now I will not be blocking traffic. Finally around noon a nice lady in a white mini van stops to ask if I need help or a ride somewhere. Normally if a lone woman were to ask if I needed assistance I would have turned her down. But I was tired and hot and wanted out. So I took her up on her offer I didn't realize until I got into her van that she also had a small child with her. She offered to take me to a near by Wal-mart to get a replacement battery but asked if I minded stopping by to let her husband know that she would be late picking him and her older son up from golfing. I told her not at all, I was just glad to finally be getting in a cool place and working toward a solution. I told her how much I appreciated her assistance but also that it was risky for a loan woman to stop and help a strange man. Now I know what I said earlier about no one stopping but I was revering to a man or woman with someone else. I'm not beeing sexist but realistic anything can happen to a woman alone helping a strange man. When we stopped to let her husband know he didn't even bother to stop playing to see who she had picked up just sent her a message that he would be awaiting her return. She then took me to get a new battery, waited for me and help me put it in. She told my that she had passed by earlier and something told her she should stop but she went a head and finished her errands. She then remembered me and desided to stop to see if I was still there. This is something she has done on other occassions when G-d moves her to do so. She doesn't stop for everyone just those that she has a "feeling" about. What a truly Christian thing to do. She even came back to Wal-mart while I was having the mechanic check out the car to make sure I was alright. I thanked her again for all of her assistance and asked for her numer or address to thank her. She said not need and that I should just "pay it forward". I hadn't heard this phrase before but I knew what she meant.

Well on to the car.

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