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Angels In Indiana.Topics: Angels, Provision, Christmas
In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just
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 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 to 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!
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Bruce Waitman <><