HOGpreacher

It was clear when the day started. Now it was about 2:00 a.m. and it hand rained much of the day, hard. The lights on my motorcycle were barely coping with the cold, wet darkness. So dark that I nearly ran into the back of a car parked -- unlit – barely off the side of the road. My first reaction was “Dumb Ass!” I was an angry young man back then and I didn't care for idiots.

A hundred yards up the road I suddenly felt the need to go back and check on the car. At the next intersection I turned and rode back.

A family of four and camping gear were tightly packed into the Chevy. The Dad climbed out into my headlight beam. Apparently they had hit a deep puddle which flooded their distributor and carburetor, and the battery was too tired to work the lights without the engine running. Just a poor family returning from a day trip adventure

So there we were. A fairly self-sufficient biker with limited car knowledge at all, but a saddlebag full of tools. And a man who was undoubtedly a good Dad but admitted to being "totally useless with engines and stuff."

A seemingly impossible situation. Then along came another biker who turned out to be a local mechanic -- with an absolute minimal tool kit on his own bike.

He asked the Dad a few questions, and then fell on my collection of tools like a kid in the Blue Bell Dairy Ice Cream Parlor. He grabbed my can of WD-40, and sorted out their car in fifteen minutes flat. Dad looked terrified as the mechanic deftly dismantled, dried, and reassembled bits of the car which Dad had never seen before.

The mechanic shrugged off thanks and roared off to avoid a late return home. Dad was headed to Overton, about 15 miles beyond my normal turnoff, but wasn't too sure of his route. I offered to follow him home. Off he went, children waving, and horn beeping. I finally got home about an hour before I needed to start work. All arrived safely without another hitch.

I call it the "Divine Mission". I help when I can by helping others, and always, when I have problems beyond my own ability to solve, someone turns up to help.

This night was particularly memorable because the mechanic said he wouldn't have stopped if he hadn't been curious about my motocylce facing the wrong way.

Despite the lousy weather the "Divine Mission" was firing on all cylinders that night, and six people felt better for it.