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Hard times are upon us, friends. A lot of people are out of work and it's looking like there could be a lot more before it's all over. That reminded me of a hitch-hiker I picked up a few years ago. I'll call him Joe.
I used to have a dedicated route driving up to Cleveland, Ohio from Dayton, Ohio and back. I usually stopped at this little mom and pop's truck stop about 40 miles north of Columbus on I-71. I think it's called the Duke Travel Plaza, but I'm not quite sure. Anyway, I stopped in there one day like usual and there's this guy standing by the entrance to the truck stop. He was skinny and dirty and all he had was a jeans jacket for a coat out there in the Ohio winter. He also had a small, duffel bag that had a make shift strap on it made of twine because the original strap had broken off.
I knew the guy was a hitch-hiker and probably homeless just by looking at him. It was also cold that day and that jeans jacket he had on probably wasn't insulating him too well. As I got closer to the door he looked at me and asked in a thick southern accent which direction I was going. I told him north and he asked for a ride. He said he needed to get to Cleveland. I told him to hop in the truck.
I don't usually pick up hitch-hikers, but I just had a sense about that guy that told me it was going to be alright. I guess that's intuition. My mom would kick my ass if she found out that I had picked up hitch-hikers so I'd appreciate it if you don't tell her.
So, I walked into the truck stop and grabbed 3 one liters of Diet Coke and big, ol' bag of popcorn. Then I returned to the truck and we headed toward Cleveland. I offered one of the sodas to Joe and he took it and drank half of it in one pull. I wondered how long it had been since he'd had a decent meal.
As we rolled up the highway Joe told me why he was out on the road. He was from some little town in the panhandle of Florida. For some reason he had lost his job and was unable to find another job. When the cars started to get repossessed and the house foreclosed on, his wife left him. Joe figured he had nothing to lose so he hit the road. He had heard that Ohio was a good place to find work. A lot of people from the south have migrated to Ohio in search of a good factory job. Despite his predicament, Joe sounded positive. He was sure he'd be able to start a new life for himself in Cleveland.
It had gotten dark before we hit the I-480 bypass and we could see the Cleveland skyline all lit up. My stop was just off the highway there and I told Joe that was as far as I could take him. I pulled into a vacant parking lot to let Joe off. I still had the popcorn and another full bottle of Diet Coke and I gave both of them to Joe. I pulled out my wallet and I had $24 in there- 4 ones and a twenty. I gave the $4 to Joe. He smiled at me and shook my hand then hopped out of the truck. It was very cold out and I wondered where Joe was going to go. He said all he had to do was find a cop and he/she would tell him where he could go to stay warm. I'm not so sure about that, though.
Times are probably going to be tough here in the near future. We need to pull together and help each other out.
I wish I would have given Joe that twenty now.
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