Angels Once In A While 

Author Unknown

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 dollars 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 and 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 another 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 owner of 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 full-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 were 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 the 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.

I BELIEVE IN ANGELS! They live next door, around
the corner, work in your office, patrol your
neighborhood, call you at midnight to hear you laugh
and listen to you cry, teach your children, and you
see them everyday without even knowing it!. Send
this to someone you think is an angel!

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