A Christmas Story In September 1960, Susan woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in her pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two. Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds. He did manage to leave $15 a week to buy groceries. Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either. If there was a welfare system in effect in Southern Indiana, at that time, she certainly knew nothing about it. She scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on her best homemade dress. She loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job. The seven of them went to every factory, store and restaurant in their small town. No luck. The kids stayed, crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while she tried to convince whomever would listen that she was willing to learn or do anything. Still no luck. The last place they went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour and Susan could start that night.Susan raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. She bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so they made a deal. That night, when the little ones and Susan knelt to say their prayers, They all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so she started at the Big Wheel. When she got home in the mornings she woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of her tip money-fully half of what she averaged every night. As the weeks went by, heating bills added another strain to her meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. She had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before she could go home. One bleak fall morning, she dragged herself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up residence in Indiana?She wondered. She made a deal with the owner of the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, she would clean up his office. she remember it took her a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires. she was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasnt enough. Christmas was coming and Susan knew there would be no money for toys for the kids. She found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then she hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. She was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair. On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. These were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up. When it was time for her to go home at seven oclock on Christmas morning she hurried to the car. She was hoping the kids wouldnt wake up before she managed to get home and get the presents from the basement and place them under the tree. (We had cut down a small cedar tree by the side of the road down by the dump.) It was still dark and she couldnt see much, but there appeared to be some dark shadows in the car-or was that just a trick of the night? Something certainly looked different, but it was hard to tell what. When she reached her car she peered warily into one of the side windows. Then her jaws dropped in amazement. Her old battered Chevy was filled full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes.She quickly opened the drivers side door, scrambled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat. Reaching back, She pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was a whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! She looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then she peeked inside some of the other boxes: There were candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was a whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll. As she drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, she was sobbing with gratitude. And she will never forget the joy on the faces of her little ones that precious morning. Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 06:25:27 +0000
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