A few years ago we were traveling across the desert from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. We had crossed the U.S.A. in one of our transcontinental camping jaunts and were returning home to the east coast. The Mojave Desert lay in front of us on a scorching summer day. It was a beautiful clear day as the miles sped beneath our Toyota's wheels at a rate greater than one mile per minute. Some Lynyrd Skynyrd was playing softly on the radio as we chatted about what we expected to do in the glitz capital of the country. The harmony of these moments of marital tranquility was broken by the sound of the front passenger side tire on our car disintegrating. We rolled to a bumpy stop on the side of the nearly deserted highway. (I guess bad things happen when you play Skynyrd softly.)
Upon observation, sure enough the tire was shredded. We would need to call AAA for service. We were standing beside the car surveying the damage when Claudette said to me, "Is that a man up there?" pointing in the direction we were traveling. "It is, if it isn't one of those mirages they used to have in those desert movies," I answered as I surveyed the seemingly unending miles of sagebrush surrounding us. But the figure had appeared almost as an apparition, and as he came closer we saw that he was a man of about six feet tall and 175 pounds and appeared to be in his early thirties with dark brown hair cut short. He wore jeans, Reeboks, and would you believe, a Lynyrd Skynyrd t-shirt. As he walked up to us he pulled two small bottles of water from his pockets and said, "You look like you need help and could probably use a drink of water." We thanked him for the water, and he asked if we had a spare tire. We began to unload the trunk in order to reach the spare. It actually took us longer to dig out the spare tire than it did for our new friend to change it. But, without much difficulty, we were soon on our way. We asked our new friend if we could give him a ride, although I don't know where there was room for him in the car, because when we camp coast-to-coast we pack the car from the back bumper to the back of the front seats. He declined our offer and said his wife and children were waiting for him up ahead and walked away. We stowed away the last few pieces of camping equipment before continuing toward Las Vegas.
A few miles further I said to Claudette, " We never did see that fellow's family waiting for him did we?"
"No," she answered, "and we didn't even ask his name."
Questions: Is listening to Sweet Home Alabama in the morning a bad omen and/or are there really angels?
