Miracle on I-69

So the other day, as my wife Donna and I sat and had our morning coffee and conversation, a call came in from our granddaughter, Hanna. She is an IU student, living and working in Bloomington this summer awaiting her junior year of college, and she had just yesterday borrowed Donna’s car until she could get a replacement for her recently fatally broken-down vehicle.

Big problem: she was stopped on the side of the road on I-69 in Donna’s car. The check engine light had come on, it started running rough, and had dumped a bunch of water onto the ground. Can we come and help her? There’s no question – it’s our granddaughter, in our car. I’m thinking there must be a hole somewhere in the cooling system.

We dress, I eat a banana. I pack water and some duct tape (no tools though) and we head out to rescue her. Traffic is not too bad. And we get there after about an hour or so. “I’m so unlucky!” Hanna says – having lost two cars in three days.

After I look things over, I still don’t have any idea what is wrong, but I know we should get the car off the interstate. Slowly and carefully, I drive it the three or four miles to the Sample Road exit – up and onto the side of the road there. We stop, I lift the hood again, and that’s when the miracle started.

I had no sooner begun to look around for the problem when a man stopped his truck on the opposite side of the road and asked “Everything okay?” I explained the situation to him. Granddaughter on the side on the road, drove down from Indy, water dumped on the highway, can’t tell the reason. “Let’s have a look,” he says as he gets out of his truck and crosses the road. More discussion about what was the problem, and I mention how even the power steering had stopped working. Suddenly he is on it – pulling out the shredded serpentine belt. “You didn’t see this,” he says. “That’s not too bad a fix.”

I start asking him if there is any place nearby that I could take it to be fixed. “Not around here. Let me call a guy I know who would be a good one to take it to. He’s out a ways.” That call gets no answer. “I know another guy I’ll try.” This guy answers but isn’t able to help. I learn the man’s name is Howard, he works as a trucker, and the first guy he called has helped him out in the past.

“Let’s do this, that first guy I called would be the best around here. I’ll load this car on my car trailer …” (did I mention that the man who stopped just happened to be pulling an empty trailer for transporting cars?!) “and we’ll take her over to Ken’s repair shop” (the repair guy is named Ken!) “and you can leave the keys with a form and he’ll work on it tomorrow or the next day. That okay? I don’t want no money for this, I’ll just help you out.” “Howard,” I say, “you are an angel. Not the first I’ve met in a situation like this, but for you to just show up and be all about helping us …” “I’m just trying’ to make sure I get to heaven is all,” Howard says. He tells me about his daughter who is Hanna’s age and who he worried so much about when she started at college. He was empathetic to my feelings about Hanna.

So we load up the car and follow Howard a pretty long way into the Ellettsville area and Ken’s Repair Shop. The office is open for incoming business, so while Howard unloads the car, I go in to arrange the repair. After the unload, Howard brings the keys in and says “all set.” I hand him some money, and tell him I am not taking no for an answer. He refuses to take it – “I didn’t do this for money.” I tell him the money isn’t for what he did, it’s a gift from a friend. “You ARE my friend,” he says. Then as if that isn’t enough, he says, “if your granddaughter has trouble finding a way out here to get the car, here’s my number” (he wrote it on the back of Ken’s business card) – “I’ll be glad to bring her out here.” We shook hands and Howard left, stopping by the car we traveled in to say goodbye and good luck to Donna and Hanna. “He made me take some money. But I didn’t want it.” Then off he went.

I’ve met angels who just appeared when I needed help more than once before. But Howard was special and this occasion was full of circumstances that make me shake my head in wonder. Think about it: a man with a car carrier trailer shows up just as we get our broken-down vehicle off the highway. He knows where to take the car, on a holiday. He assisted us without any concern, making what could have been a day long wait for a tow truck into a quick morning rescue. I need to be more like Howard.

Hanna nearly had left for Bloomington the night before. That would have left her on the side of the road in the dark. We are so glad for that not being the case. As I told Hanna – she is a lot luckier than she thinks!

Ken Klingenmeier is known in the pages of The Reporter for his reviews of local theater productions in the Greater Indianapolis area, which you can read on his blog, A Seat on the Aisle. He also occasionally opines on other topics.