A Palate Cleanse, and a Word of Hope
Despite Tuesday's outcome and the ambitions of a rabid, lusting few, who we are is still our choice. A true story from yesterday in contrast to current events.
After several years of heartache, my sister-in-law and her husband welcomed their baby boy this morning in southwest Missouri, and my wife wanted to be there for it. With the kids in school and work in full-bore before the quiet period marketing companies tend to have in December, she left our Wisconsin home early yesterday morning.
It was a quiet, uneventful trip, allowing her to make excellent time across the state and into Illinois, south into the plains and across into the Mississippi Valley approaching St. Louis. I was at my daughters’ school to pick them up in mid-afternoon when she called with an update: I was redirected off the interstate near Rolla. Can you jump online and see why?
I popped on my phone and saw headlines about flooding and a massive semi truck accident forcing I-44’s closure and relayed what I knew to her. She thanked me and kept on her way along the detour.
[A sidebar: We weren’t surprised by the flooding in western North Carolina resulting from Hurricane Helene precisely because we were familiar with the propensity of the Ozarks’ smaller rivers and streams to flood. In 2015, five international soldiers stationed at Fort Leonard Wood for training drowned when their vehicle became trapped in flood waters. My wife’s cousin, now Station Chief for Fort Wood’s fire department, recovered four of the bodies.]
A text came through just over an hour later: “Can you see this???”
I looked at the timestamp, and looked again; 40 minutes prior to when I was pinged. I replied right away.
“I’m stranded.”
“Flat tire.”
“Back passenger.”
I immediately switched into mission mode. I got my laptop and pulled up Google maps, got the AAA card out (because I was brilliant and forgot to give her the card that morning), looked up locations for the tire store where we just bought the new set of tires for that vehicle three months ago, along with road hazard coverage.
She messaged again, clearly in a hurry: “Annie [sic] family is helping me but I need my dad.”
Her father is currently wrapping up his term as Sheriff in a county not far from where she was; getting him alerted and potentially involved was a prudent choice.
“They may end up taking all the way back to Roll. [sic]”
I was already concerned, but now I was really worried. I didn’t know what she was talking about. I didn’t know where she was or how far south and west she was from Rolla. I didn’t know this family.
I asked her where she was, gave her the AAA info, advised her to utilize roadside assistance to try to get to Springfield or Branson, where they had stores that would readily honor our road hazard and not have to deal with reimbursements and red tape.
She responded: “Middle of nowhere”
Well, crap.
By this point, it was already getting dark here, and because the earth is round and on an axis rather than flat — a lesson we ought not take for granted with the Department of Education at risk of being Musk’d — I was grateful that she would be afforded even this much extra daylight being roughly 500 miles south and west of home.
There was nothing to do but wait.
Another message came through: “They are taking me to Rolla to get a new tire, back to their house to put the new tire on and [then he’s] going to get back to the interstate where it’s open.”
I still had no idea who they or this family was, and while they were clearly nice enough to help her in the moment, she was a woman, alone, going into a random stranger’s home in the Ozarks, had no cell data and was about to hop in a vehicle and travel to what she assumed was a city with a tire shop. In the absence of options, or cell service, what else are you going to do?
I asked again who these people were and where she was, sending a location request through messaging so I could at least have a sense for location (and safety).
Nothing.
Got back onto Google to look up tire shops in Rolla, and you know how Google has different results that show on different devices because, at its core, Google hates you?
Despite using the same search query for both sessions, the name of the preferred tire store and Rolla, MO, my phone showed one set of stores. My laptop showed another, which included that store. Finally!
I texted my wife to let her know. It wasn’t long before she texted back:
“Working on it.”
She included a picture at the store counter, the associate at the register and the branding behind it.
A few moments later, she called from the store and brought me up to speed. The family was all home, preparing dinner. They dropped everything — dinner in the slow cooker and all — to help her. They took care of getting the vehicle up on a jack and got the wheel off, put everything in their vehicle and took her to Rolla. A sizable shard of metal shredded the tire, but since she was on rough road and, eventually, gravel, she didn’t realize the situation until she felt the rim on the road. The team at the store was able to mount and balance the tire in about 30 minutes and we couldn’t say yes fast enough to adding road hazard protection on the new one, all for $25 and tax.
They returned to the homestead in the woods and her van, installed the wheel, led her back to the interstate, partnered with her on the highway through some tough traffic (if you’ve never been on I-44 in the Ozarks between Springfield and St. Louis, it’s not a very fun drive) and, when she was in the clear, they insisted she text to let them know she made it to her destination safely.
My wife told me a few other details, as well. None of them were supposed to be there last night. It just so happened that they were all home for various reasons. And it turns out the road she was on wasn’t the detour to get back onto 44. There were four other houses on that gravel road, the next one was over a mile away. You are welcome to call these things fortunate, providence, a miracle; it was a blessing in a bad situation all the same.
I offer so many words to say this: There is a very good chance this family and my wife and I voted differently Tuesday, with very different views on national and international affairs. The truth is these partisan divisions, the pulling and rending we feel on our cultural fabric are only as damaging as we allow them to be.
America’s greatness has never been situated in its economic power, military might, or in its pews or halls of power. Neither in city nor country, nor is it found in a museum behind glass or at a historical site behind ropes. And it certainly won’t be found on a stock ticker or Zombie Twitter’s Explore page.
It has always been in the fundamental decency of its people, and the promise that people can come here, free to make a life for themselves and their children better than wherever they came from, which in turn gives them the freedom to treat others with decency and kindness. When this cycle is interrupted, America reflects — and, indeed, has reflected — some its worst impulses. Then again, don’t we all?
If we are to continue as a free people in a free society, it isn’t and cannot be because we have uniformity in beliefs, political leanings, personal decisions, religious convictions or ethnicity. It is precisely because we have these differences and freely set them aside to care for one another when they need it most.
To withstand whatever comes next, we as a people must choose decency, kindness, mercy and compassion for their own sake and not for ours. Admittedly, on its face, that doesn’t seem very American.
Having said that, what is more American than the right to self-determination? And what is better than a determination to be selfless, decent and kind? The grace and mercy shown to my wife in those Missouri backwoods is more American than anything we saw at campaign rallies, debates or on cable news networks.
To drop everything to help someone in need is to be a great American. In gratitude, we should be ready to do the same. If they seek power and we choose greatness, we will be the ones to endure these years and come out a better people for it. For their efforts, some will have to campaign all over again, while others reach the end of their term limits. For ours, against such things, there are no laws.