Farmer H has been driving his $1000 Caravan to work in the snow. It's front-wheel drive, and he put snow tires on it two winters ago. Never mind that it has no speedometer, or that we've spent more on insurance for it than the price of a brand-new Caravan. It gets him to work and back. His Ford F250 extended cab 4WD has been having issues. Besides, he doesn't have it loaded down with firewood for traction. So the $1000 Caravan it is.
Not being a frequent listener to the voice of reason, Farmer H insists on taking a shortcut to and from the highway. The shortcut saves him about ten miles and 15 minutes each way. I suppose he thinks he's some grand explorer forging a trail north and south.
Last night he was following a passenger car on the ice-then-snow-packed back road. At the big hill in the middle of nowhere, the car had issues. It slid off the road. As he passed by, he saw that it was a young woman in the car. He wanted to stop and help, but for one moment in time, he considered the facts. He was in a $1000 Caravan going up an ice-then-snow-packed two-lane blacktop hill. There was no shoulder to pull off. He might not have been able to get his $1000 Caravan moving again. He couldn't pull her car out. The best he could have done was offer her a ride. Hmm...young woman. Old goat Farmer H. She may or may not have accepted. A MODoT truck came down the hill as he was going up. It did not stop to help. A pickup truck was behind Farmer H, but he crested the hill and did not see if it stopped.
"I wanted to stop. But then I thought, 'No. I can't really help her.' I hate that I went on by."
"You can't save everybody. I'm sure she had a cell phone."
"Yeah. And that truck might have stopped. He had 4WD."
I feel bad for that young woman, and for Farmer H. He's always been a helper. That one time he jumped a fence near his old workplace at Tower Grove and Vandeventer, and knocked an attacking dog off a 4-year-old boy and called 911. He came home covered in blood.
Farmer H is not getting any younger. It's time to let someone else be the hero.
3 comments:
My husband had problems with his work van coming back from Jefferson City on Thursday. It was cold. He is old. He had to air up his tire, and was upset no one stopped to help him.
These days, who stops to help a man? Who is trustworthy? Who is trusting enough to accept help from a stranger?
Farmer H is definitely a hero. I am revising my opinion of him. No wood chipper for him...yet.
Really, in one post, I have revised my past opinions regarding Hick. Well, some of them. I'm with Sioux on this one - hold off on the wood chipper for now.
Sioux,
Nobody stops to help a young woman fix a tire either. Not even a relative. Years ago, shortly after my union with Farmer H, I had a flat in the middle of the Mark Twain National Forest. Or nearby. Ten miles from the town where I taught, fifteen miles from the next town on the way home. I pulled over at an old-timey, closed grocery store, jacked up my Toyota Corolla, and pried off the flat.
A couple of cars whooshed past. Then I saw the next one slowing down. It was my cousin, who worked at a school a bit further up the road from mine. She smiled. She waved. AND KEPT ON GOING! Let's just say that Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma's house was a bit strained.
*****
knancy,
The reprieve has been granted. For now.
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