Good people

[thegoat4]

So I spent last weekend in Ft. Worth celebrating christmas. Late Sunday I had to drive back to Austin. Not too far out of Ft. Worth I decided I was too tired to drive, so I pulled over for a nap. Slept about an hour and a half. I woke up because it got cold inside the truck. Went to start, no power.

I didn't leave anything on, not even the radio. When I key on, the dash all comes on, but as soon as I try to crank it, everything dies. Doesn't even click the starter relay.

I spend the next hour trying to push the damned truck far enough to start rolling down the hill so I can pop the clutch to get going. When I tore the sole off one of my shoes I decided that wasn't a workable plan. But it did keep me warm until then.

So, I hauled out my jumper cables, stood on the side of I35, and waved them at everyone passing by. I counted 214 cars and pickups drove by. I didn't count semis or buses since I figured they wouldn't stop anyway.

Then, one guy pulled over. Brand new mustang, really pretty, all waxed up. He didn't hesitate or anything. Drove right off into the dirt and crap and gave me a jump start. I offered him money, he refused it, wised me well, and drove off.

I drove straight home, parked on a hill, and shut off. Tried again, still wouldn't start. The next day I popped the clutch to start and get to work, and tested the battery. It was putting out nine amps at two volts, and would not take a charge at all. The day before it failed, I stopped and started the truck a few dozen times with no problem. The battery simply decided it would stop working right there on the side of I35 in the middle of a cold night, miles from everything. Good thing that guy in the mustang drove by!

Story number two is a little shorter. A couple of months ago I stayed late at work, helping to repair the suspension on a house mover. Heavy assed little truck with 25 years of grime all over the back end and the owner had very little money. I spent three hours with a torch, a sledge, an air hammer, and two bottle jacks salvaging his suspension. In the process I broke my favorite chisel for my air hammer.

Anyway, after I was done and the foreman was working up the bill, the owner and I got to talking. I picked up the chisel when I lived in Waco at some oddball little hardware store. Turns out he lives in Waco and knows the guy who owns that store.

Yesterday, I get paged to the counter, and he's standing there! And he hands me a brand new chisel. We chat a little and he heads back out. Said he'd been driving around for weeks with that in there and finally made it back into Austin, so he swung by the shop to drop it off.

Yay for humanity.

 

[Explorin94]

There still are some good people around this continent.

 

[Mark_88]

Cool! Interesting stories...

I'm surprised that only one out of 215 or so cars stopped...just after 9/1/1 I was driving my Ranger back and forth to work and it was having problems...it would die on the highway (flooded) during wet weather and I would have to wait a few minutes for the gas to evaporate and it would start right up...

I would say I'd stopped probably once or twice a day for a period of about a month before I figured it was road spray soaking the wires and causing it to have no spark for a few minutes...but in that time with all those stops I was surprised that almost every time I was there for more than a few minutes someone would stop and offer help...I didn't try to wave them down or anything...it became more of a task to walk over to their cars and say I didn't need help...or wave them off saying thank you...

But maybe it's just the area you were in at the time...

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

It's always good to hear positive stories like that. I try to be helpful whenever I can, but I worry anymore about stopping to help someone by the side of the road after hearing quite a few stories around here of someone standing by a vehicle that appears to be broken down... with an accomplice or two hiding nearby to rob the unsuspecting good samaritan.

There have been a few times when I've wanted to stop an help someone that looked to be in a really bad spot, but oddly enough, each time it would have been an exercise in futility. I say that because I see someone in need of a jump start but they obviously don't have cables and I left mine in my other truck, or they're trying to fix something or other and the tool that I have to do it is at home, in the other truck, or broken.

 

[shadetree]

There still are some good people around this continent.

Yep, especially in Texasshady

 

[v-8power]

I was driving into town yesturday and offered a guy walking, a ride. Apparently he got tired of waiting for his wife, so he started walking.

 

[tpking]

i saw a guy walking down the road with his thumb out the other day. went to slow down but got to seeing that he had a pistol stuck in the front of his pants... i waved and went on

 

[naford]

It sounds like the Budlight commercial. The picks up the guy in the hockey mask and chainsaw carrying a 12 pack of Budlight.