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color="black" face="arial" size="2"><font color="black"
face="arial" size="2"><b><span style="COLOR: #000099;
FONT-SIZE: 13.5pt"><font color="#000000">My boys ranged
from three months to seven years; their sister was two.
Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they
feared.<font size="2"> </font>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. <br>
<br>
I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then
put on my best homemade dress, loaded <font size="2">t</font>hem
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 who ever would listen that I was willing to
learn <font size="2">to</font> 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.<font
size="2"> </font>It was called the Big Wheel.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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
<font size="2">a</font>sleep. This seemed like a good
arrangement to her, so we made a deal.<br>
<br>
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<font size="2">. </font>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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
Had angels taken up residence in Indiana, I wondered.<font
size="2"> </font>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.<br>
<br>
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 <font size="2">a</font>nd
painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement
so there would be something for Santa to deliver on
Christmas morning. <br>
<br>
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. There 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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on
Christmas morning, to my 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, crawled inside and kneeled in the front facing the
back seat.<br>
<br>
Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box.
Inside was 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
whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And
there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little
doll.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago
December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck
stop<font size="2">! </font> <br>
<br>
THE POWER OF PRAYER. I believe that God only gives three
answers to prayer:</font><br>
<font color="#000000"><br>
1. 'Yes!'<br>
2. 'Not yet.' <br>
3. 'I have something better in mind.'</font></span></b></font></font></font>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Liberals! "No one is so generous as he who has your savings
to give." ~ German Proverb</pre>
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