My good Samaritan

The parable goes in the Bible how a man fell into trouble with thieves and laid on the side of the road as two people who should've helped him just passed by (retold here by some camp counselors). They never asked what he needed or even looked at him. But in the end it was the one least suspected who stopped to help him.



Well, the same can be said for me yesterday as I tried to come home through the ice. I turned down a smaller road, hit a huge slick spot and uncontrollably spun off the road. I got out, and realizing that the situation wasn't too bad, decided not to call the tow truck but to put the car in neutral and try to push it back on the road. As it poured rain, and the road and slush got slicker, there were several cars who drove straight past me, driving out of my way as they ignored my obvious need. Finally, a woman rolled down her window and asked if I needed a phone to call. "No, I thought I'd push it back myself". She couldn't help me with that and she left.

It was 20 minutes of pushing and shoving the car in the snow and I almost had made it back onto the road when a ghettoed out car so low it was riding the ice pulled up and a kid the size of my little brother hopped out. With multiple face piercings, he wasn't the stereotypical stop on the side of the road to help kind of guy, but he was all it took to get the car off the shoulder and back on the road. I could barely thank him as I ran to jump in my car which was now in neutral sliding the opposite direction. I jumped in the car, threw on the emergency brake, thanked him a lot and then tried to get the car going again. The road was so icy that I couldn't even get traction for a while.

But that is how I made it home last night, and exactly why I still occasionally believe in the future of society.