The Charitable BAC from WY

The Good Samaritan

Happy Easter everyone! Today I was reminded of a story that happened 7 years ago. I forget about this story often, and from time to time someone reminds me of it in some way or another and I think about it for a little while. I have never written it in a journal or anything, and feel like it's about time I did.

When I was 20, I was dating someone who grew up in Idaho Falls, ID. We were up there for a 4th of July weekend and were hanging out with his family. We decided to take a day trip to Jackson Hole since it's just a couple of hours away, and buy fireworks from Wyoming, and walk around the town. For those of you who don't know, Jackson is a really cool city, and in the summer it is gorgeous there!  We headed there around lunch time and walked around the town, explored and got some food etc. A perfect summer day if you ask me.

As we were getting ready to leave it was getting dark, so we called his parents to let them know we'd be back right around the time we had planned. We started back and just as we got about 10 miles out of town, we got a flat tire. He said it would be no big deal, and got out to change the tire. He was out there for a while and when he got back in the car he was pretty upset. I asked him what was wrong and he said the wrench he uses to get his tire off is missing and we can't change the tire without it.

We got out and tried to call someone on our cell phones, but neither of us could get any reception at all. The service was cutting out since we were just about to enter a canyon. We walked a decent distance back toward town and still couldn't get any reception and by this time it was almost dark. The sun had already set and we didn't have any way to get help. We decided to try to flag someone down. It took about half an hour, and finally someone pulled over.

He seemed like he was in his late 20's or early 30's. And he quickly came to see what we needed. After explaining to him the situation, he checked to see if his wrench would fit our car... it didn't. Then they decided to search the trunk again, and in this process they started thinking the spare might be flat too. After this finding, he graciously offered to take us into town to see if we could get cell phone reception and possibly get someone from the mechanic shop to help. As we were driving in to town, he hands his cell phone to the guy I was dating, and said we could use it as much as we needed while he was with us.

Then after we call his parents and let them know the issue, we check the local mechanic, and they are closed for the next 3 days due to the holiday weekend. At this point we kind of feel like our only option is a tow truck, but that would be so expensive and we were poor college students. We decide to call his parents and see what they think we should do. After we talked to them and they figured out a solution for us,  we had to wait for them to get to Jackson to help us. We offered to take the guy to dinner for helping us, and he was grateful for our offer.

At dinner we started to talk to him all about where he was from, what he did, etc. He was very warm and friendly. He told he had recently recovered from a really bad lifestyle, and had attempted suicide before. One night he said he was getting ready to shoot himself, and was really at the end of his rope, and felt there was no hope for him. He said an "angel" appeared to him and told him that was not his path, and he needed to live and help people find God's path for them. He was very serious when he told us this.

Now, I don't know if an angel really appeared to him, or what really happened that night. But he was very different than the man he had described himself as previously being. He was very happy and giving, and he told us that's the way he had been since that day when his life was saved. He was now a member of a born-again Christian faith, and told us that if we were ever stuck there again we could come to one of their meetings. We talked to him for quite a while about what he was doing now, and how he was so different. He seemed to have a lot of faith in what he believed in and I can still remember how I wished for faith like that in my beliefs (at the time I had been in a longtime battle to find my faith in my religion).

After dinner we went to pay and found out he'd snuck payment to the waitress for the meal while he had "gone to the restroom". This guy was so selflessly charitable toward us. We kept trying to give him money for driving us around and helping us, but he refused. Then he dropped us off at a movie theater where we were planning to spend the rest of the time we had to wait for his parents to come help us. As we were getting out of the car he told us that charity was such a big part of life, and that we all needed to incorporate it into ours. Then if I remember right, he handed us a $20 and told us to have a good time at the movies (this may or may not have happened, the last part is kind of fuzzy in my memory, but I swear he paid for that too).

It's amazing to me that there are people out there that are so willing to help strangers in need. Sometimes I forget how much I have and how little others have. It makes me realize how selfish we all can be. I think I need to be more observant of how I can serve others, even those that are super close to me... that sometimes I forget could use a little bit of help every now and then.

I want to make sure I incorporate this attitude into my life as much as possible.

Have any of you ever had an experience where someone was extremely selfless, and came to your rescue? Let me know, I'd love to hear your stories. Please comment on this post if you would like to share.