August 19, 2004

another good deed

I took the dirt road behind my house to Randall's Liquor Store today because I was running low on beer and cigarettes. I needed to reload.

Old Augusta Road is one of the best-kept dirt roads I've ever seen. Even after all the rain we've had lately, the road was in great shape, until I turned the corner and passed the sign from Effingham to Chatham County. (Randall has a great place for a liquor store--- right on the county line between Baptists and drunks.) The road goes only about 100 yards farther, but that sumbitch looked like the army had been using it for heavy artillery practice. It didn't have potholes. It had CAVES in it.

What did I see? A red Chevy Cavilear buried up to its radiator in one of those holes and a woman standing on the side of the road with her hands clasped under her chin as if she were praying to God. I stopped and asked if I could help her.

"Do you have a cell phone?" she pleaded. "I belong to AAA they'll send a tow-truck out here if I can call them." I told her that I didn't have my cell phone with me, but I thought that I could pull her out. I keep a tow-strap behind the back seat of my truck and I fished it out. I pulled my truck up as close to her car as I could.

Only THEN did I realize that to hook her front axle to mine, I was going to have to swim through a mud-hole to do it. Her car was sunk DEEP in that slime. I took off my shirt and handed it to her along with my wallet. "Hold these for me, darlin.' I think I'm gonna have to get dirty."

This WAS NOT a pretty woman. She was older than I am and she didn't arouse me at all in a sexual nature. But she was a damsel in distress and I am a Southern gentleman who believes in chivalry. I crawled through that mudhole, hooked our axles together with my tow-strap and got covered up with shit doing it. I looked like Fido's ass by the time I was finished. I had mud running out of my ears.

"I need to ask you to do one thing for me, darlin," I said. "I can't do this all by myself. You're going to have to get in that car, put the gear in neutral and steer while I pull you to high ground. Just give me a thumbs up when you're ready."

She already had mud on her damn near up to her knees, so she didn't hesitate. "I can do that," she replied, and she waded through the mud and climbed into her car. I got in my truck and she gave me a big thumbs up. I pulled her out of that mudhole.

When her car was high and dry, I crawled through the dirt again and disconnected my tow-strap. I retrieved my shirt and my wallet. The woman offered to pay me, but I didn't want her money. I told her that it was my good deed for the day and maybe somebody will do that sort of thing for my mama if she's ever stuck on a dirt road in the future. She thanked me again and went on her merry way in that little red car.

I drove my truck through that mudhole and made it to Randall's. I walked through the door and people said, "My Gawd, Rob! What happened to you?" I looked as if I had been wallowing in a pig-sty.

"Nothing happened," I replied. "I look this way all the time anymore. Gimme some beer and cigarettes."

I bought beer and cigarettes and drove back home. I DID not take the dirt road this time.

Comments

I've read your blog for a long time, for me this was the best post ever-pulling the woman out of the mud! You are lovable!

Posted by: Kathianne on August 19, 2004 10:07 PM

Chivalry will never die as long as you're breathing. You're a good man and this was a very good post.

Posted by: Joy on August 19, 2004 10:25 PM

I grew up in South Texas, and we had "roads" like this all the time... I can't tell you how many times I helped people out of situations like you described. It was just the thing to do. No one asked for compensation, and no one asked for the government to fix the roads. It was just how things were.

Oh, if only things were like this today!

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Posted by: maria on August 19, 2004 11:39 PM

Seems like all the knights in shining armor are down South.

Uh, looks like you got some spamming knucklehead, my dear.

Posted by: Juliette on August 20, 2004 12:20 AM

Nicely done, Rob. If it had taken place in Jersey, she probably would have stolen your wallet. :-)

Posted by: Jim on August 20, 2004 04:26 AM

If I did not know you any better, I would think that you were a biker. Bikers stop and help everyone. That was your good dead for the day, it also made you feel good, to be able to help someone.

Posted by: Catfish on August 20, 2004 10:12 AM

I've been in that situation with a blowout when a Southern Gentleman (or as I think of him, a Good Ole Boy) stopped and put my donut spare on for me. I knew *how* to do it, but I wasn't strong enough to actually loosen the lug nuts.

His response to my thanks 'I hope someone would help my girlfriend if she was stuck'

I love southern men.

Posted by: shell on August 20, 2004 11:56 AM

Uh, be careful about them there good deeds, sir. In my experience, every time I do a gratuitous chivalric Christian good deed for a female human woman, somebody does something nasty to me and mine, right soon. E.G.; Last Saturday, after Charlene went through here, I went down to the Mobil station to get some beer. ( They having power, and being open) Some woman had just driven up on a flat tire in her recent Volvo. I offered to help, and found out the usual: Volvo owners don't know how anything works. After putting air in her skinny-spare, making her read the owner's manual (first time ever?) and explaining why you loosen the wheel bolts before you start jacking it up, I sent her on her way to her no-doubt-important insurance-adjuster job. Did I do it from instinct? From upbringing? Because she was a woman? Because she was a fellow scrawny nerdy ectomorph? Because she was a neighbor, like the Samaritan?

I dunno.

Well, anyway, On Thursday morning I was lying up with a somewhat banged-up knee when my aged Daddy got home from his Aqua-cize and said, "What happened to the mangos?" What? I went out, and looked, and sho'nuff, the three or four dozen almost-ripe mangos I had picked up off the ground after Charlene had knocked them off the tree were gone from where I'd put them. None of the Goddamned Midwestern Yankee neighbors saw a thing, of course. Among these neighbors is the one who sicced the local skin-headed dogfuckin JBTs on us for "Domestic Violence" for, as near as I can tell, my having to yell at my aged Daddy because he won't wear his hearing aids. The moral is, avoid good turns, you will get your reward.

Ain't this looting? Can we, uh, get a rope?

P.S. I absolutely refuse to comply with the post- '79 convention. ALL hurricanes are FEMALE!

Posted by: Justthisguy on August 20, 2004 03:18 PM

Oops, aqua-cize was today! I think Daddy was actually out trying to get the A/C fixed in the car.

Posted by: Justthisguy on August 20, 2004 03:24 PM

Whoever stole those mangos did you a favor. Mangos are evil.

Posted by: Acidman on August 20, 2004 10:43 PM

I decided long ago that I wouldn't bother to drive a truck if I didn't have jumper cables and a tow chain.
And I drive a truck every day.

And I live in Santa Barbara Juliette!

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August 19, 2004

another good deed