The Big Wheel (a classic)
This little story makes it's rounds every year starting just past Thanksgiving time and it floats about the USA and maybe the world till past Christmas. As far as I know this story is true, I knew the owner, the waitress, and the building that has sense burnt down. It seems the facts of the basic story stay the same, almost word for word, but at the end there may be a paragraph added that tells the reader that they may be hit by lightning if they don't forward it to 222 people in the next 15 minutes. Read it where you find it - maybe print it for reading next year - It is a great story that I have been reading for years.
The Big Wheel
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. 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 whoever 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, and 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 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, crumbled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat.
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.
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....
The Big Wheel
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. 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 whoever 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, and 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 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, crumbled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat.
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.
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....
