11/23/2007: "You Saved Me"
I remember my bike, yellow, of all colors. The color of cowardice, with it's larger wheels and banana shaped seat it was my rider. Extremely comfortable mind you, but a poor kids bike for sure. We went pretty far that day, or so was the intent. We left our neighborhood and found ourselves approaching the highway of all places. Our goal, to ride to the arcade at the mall and play and watch video games that they had. Arcades were huge in the 80s of course, filling a room with 30 to 50 arcade games was no big surprise anymore, and it was a sign of the times.
My friends were still ahead and at this point I was wondering if I hadn't been told if this was a race or not, a race I assuredly and as fate held for me, one I would not win. Upon getting on the highway I traveled a fair bit, maybe a quarter mile before something went seriously wrong. I stopped pedaling, as if being caught by something. I looked down and noticed my shoestring from my high tops had gotten caught in the bike chain. I couldn't move my leg to loosen it and I couldn't pedal since my shoe was attached to my foot. All of this is going on while cars are traveling at high rates of speed next to me, or my left, going to wherever they were traveling.
After realizing my predicament I started to get really scared. I didn't know how I could get home, and no one could hear me because of the noise of the cars, and no one was going to stop for me. I was some poor boy on the side of the road with his shoestrings caught in his bike chain. I cried for a good five minutes, not knowing what was going to happen to me, or if help would ever come, but like all stories this one is no different. Help did come.
A gray sedan, pretty nice car for that time period pulled up, and a man with a tie on got out of the car. He came up to me and said, "it looks like you're stuck". I said, "I am, and I don't know how to get out". He got down near my shoes and noticed he couldn't undo the knot that had created in the chain with my shoe. I was worried, I didn't want to take up his time, nor did he even have to stop for me. He got up and said, "I can't get it loose", at this point my heart sank, feeling scared, alone, and weak. He then said, "let me go get my tools from home and I'll be back". I sat there in awe thinking, you don't have to do that, and no way is this man coming back for me, especially in his nice car and nice clothes.
On the side of the road I stood, not even being able to sit. Being completely trapped in my position, unable to do anything but stand. I can't even remember how long it was, whether 15 or 30 minutes passed, not even a single person after that had stopped. Not to see if I was ok, or see what I was doing standing on the side of the road, on an overpass, in broad daylight with my face red most likely and laden with tears.
Without choking up too many tears as I tell this story, the man came back. He pulled up near uniform of the way he did the first time and got out of the car with his toolbox and within no time at all, I was freed. I couldn't believe that he had come back. I offered him something small, the money I had for the arcade games, a measly five dollars, and he would not accept it, assuredly because a man of his status didn't need five dollars and apparently doing the right thing was more important to him.
Decades later I've grown, become an adult, loved and lost, went through life's typical dilemma's, schooling and career. Yet if ever I have been asked the question of who has done the nicest thing for me in all of my life, I always think of this story. I always think of that man that didn't leave me on the side of the road no matter how poor, or pathetic, or weak, or scared I was.
I swear I wish that this person has been blessed beyond blessed by God for what he did that day, because while it may seem small to many people, it meant everything to me and still had that profound of an effect on me, as I still remember it to this day. Yet even while wishing this man all the fortunes of life, I don't know what happened to him, and I don't even know if he is alive to this day. Part of me even wonders whether he was an Angel, or even God himself in disguise. You see most people that do something good, while not accepting anything, still want recognition of what they've done, they want you to know who they were.
Yet at the end of this story of the man that saved me when I was trapped I will tell you this, he never even told me his name...
So if you're out there and you are reading this someday, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for saving me.