The Big Wheel
Posted by: bigguyhereagain <bigguyhereagain@...>
In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six
hungry babies and just 75 cents in my 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, I certainly knew nothing about
it. I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new
and then put on my best homemade dress. I loaded them
into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a
job.
The seven of us went to every factory, store and
restaurant in our small town.
No luck. The kids stayed crammed into the car and
tried to be quiet while I tried to convince whomever
would listen that I was willing to learn or do
anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck.
The last place we 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 I could start that night. I raced
home and called the teenager down the street that
baby-sat for people. I 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 we made a deal.
That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our
prayers we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job.
And so I started at the Big Wheel.
When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter
up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip
money--fully half of what I averaged every night.
As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to
my meager wage.
The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of
penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them
with air on the way to work and again every morning
before I could go home.
One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself 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? I wondered.
I made a deal with the local service station. In
exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean
up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to
scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.
I was now working six nights instead of five and it
still wasn't enough.
Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no
money for toys for the kids.
I found a can of red paint and started repairing and
painting some old toys.
Then I hid them in the basement so there would be
something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning.
Clothes were a worry too. I 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 me to go home at seven o'clock on
Christmas morning I hurried to the car. I was hoping
the kids wouldn't wake up before I 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 I couldn't 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 I reached the car I peered warily into one of the
side windows. Then my jaw dropped in amazement. My old
battered Chevy was filled full to the top with boxes
of all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the driver's
side door, scrambled inside and kneeled in the front
facing the back seat.
Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box.
Inside was a whole case of little blue jeans, sizes
2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of
shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some
of the other boxes: There was 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 I drove back through empty streets as the sun
slowly rose on most amazing Christmas Day of my life,
I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget
the joy on the faces of my 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.
A small boy once approached his slightly older
sister with a question about God. "Susie, can
anybody ever really see God?" he asked.
Busy with other things, Susie curtly replied: "No,
of course not silly. God is so far up in heaven that
nobody can see Him." Time passed, but his question
still lingered so he approached his mom: "Mom, can
anybody ever really see God?" "No, not really," she
gently said. "God is a spirit and He dwells in our hearts,
but we can never really see Him."
Somewhat satisfied but still wondering, the youngster
went on his way. Not long afterwards, his saintly old
grandfather took the little boy on a fishing trip. They
were having a great time together--it had been an ideal
day. The sun was beginning to set with unusual splendor
as the day ended. The old man stopped fishing and turned
his full attention to the exquisite beauty unfolding before him.
On seeing the face of his grandfather reflecting such deep
peace and contentment as he gazed into the magnificent
ever-changing sunset, the little boy thought for a moment
and finally spoke hesitatingly: "Granddad, I--I-- wasn't going
to ask anybody else, but I wonder if you can tell me the
answer to something I've been wondering about a long time-
-can anybody--can anybody ever really see God?"
The old man did not even turn his head. A long moment
slipped by before he finally answered. "Son," he quietly said.
"It's getting so I can't see anything else."
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