After my neighbor's grandson threatened to smash my new (used) car with a large cinder block tonight (I was in the car, but he didn't mean it and thought I was someone else. And he had been drinking, but never mind.), I thought: Boy, I ought to blog that one. And then it occured to me that I hadn't told you about Eutaw, Alabama. It's in Green County and I had an adventure there. Remember my wife's car? The Volvo with the bad brakes? We fixed the brakes and took the car (named Helga) to Mississippi to visit my mother-in-law for Thanksgiving. We intended to leave at 5 pm on Wednesday and drive until midnite to get there. But we never leave on time. This time I think we left at 10 pm or so. We made it somewhere between Fort Payne and Noccalula Falls (also known as Nowhere, Alabama) before the car overheated. It was fairly cold, but at least we had our kids with us, and no cell phone reception. The radiator was bone-dry (at least the brakes worked) and I dumped the last half of my water bottle in it. Then I remembered that, on a whim, I had thrown almost an entire case of water in the trunk because we had a little extra room. I put 160 ounces of water in the radiator, bottle by bottle, and we were on the road. We made it there as the sun was rising. Thanksgiving was great (even if we were tired). Friday, we decided to go home at the end of the day. It was just getting dark (home by midnight!) and we took off from Brookhaven, Mississippi. A few miles down the road I was struck by how dark it was. "Do the headlights look a little dim to you?" I asked my wife. We did make it back to her mother's before the battery died. I drove the few miles in the dark and the last bit of charge left the battery as we pulled into the driveway. I assumed that we had an alternator problem. My father-in-law, who is a great guy, and I went and got a battery and dropped it in. Then I took the car the next morning to the auto parts store. They tested the alternator and told me it was fine. Cool. We headed home. We made it to Meridian. The battery died on a raised section of interstate in fairly significant traffic. A couple with a baby, a walking child, and armloads of stuff looks pretty pathetic walking on a five-foot shoulder with semis blowing by at seventy, and God sent us a kind couple who gave us a lift to the next exit. This was actually a blessing for my oldest son, who had been begging me for a couple of months to eat at a Waffle House. He got his wish. While there I went through the phone book looking for a car rental place that might pick us up. It needed to be something local so they'd be flexible. Anytime Auto, Don Landrum-Owner/Operator. Turns out that the car rental place was also a repair shop and a towing company. It was about a mile away. The owner told me that he was one of the only places in Meridian that worked on Volvos. They came and got us. He towed our car. We rented a Sebring. Anytime Auto is not much to look at and it's right next to a housing project, but the owner seemed very nice (I had no idea) and I just wanted to get my family home and preach the next morning. The Sebring did fine and we made it home.  
Monday I called Don and he told me that the repair was only about a hundred bucks because the alternator was fine, but my battery cables were shot and a ground wire was detached. I took the day off of work and drove the Sebring back and picked up Helga. It was late afternoon and it was getting dark. While I still had a little bit of light I decided to drive by Highway 11 instead of Interstate 59. I thought I might get to brouse a couple of antique stores (one) before it got dark. It got dark in Eutaw, Alabama. It also got cold. I couldn't have told you then that Green County is the poorest county in Alabama. I also couldn't have told you that I broke down less than a mile from a huge casino. I could tell you that the gas station where Helga died was abandoned and closed. I called my wife, and then I called Don. To tell you the truth, I didn't know exactly what I wanted Don to do. I only had a little battery left on my cell, and the repair ticket had his phone number on it. Don told me he'd call me back. "My truck will be there in a little more than an hour." I wondered how much that would cost (turns out, nothing). Did I mention it was cold? A little ways off there was one thing that looked open, Jerry's Motel. Two of Jerry's large dogs came out snarling to meet me as I walked up. I gambled that Jerry'd have very little business if those dogs bit people and ever since I got terrorized by some Dobermans as a kid dogs have made me more angry than scared. They quit snarling when I got close. Jerry came out of a room in his wheelchair and I told him my situation. He sent his employee out to look at the car (we looked at it), after we were cold enough we went back to the motel.  
Now a very big part of me wants to play up the appearance of the motel or the odd situation that I walked into. Because when I've told this to people it sounds like a funny story. But it's only a partly funny story. It's really a Jesus story, because Jesus welcomes sinners and people who are in need. Jerry's office was pretty old and repaired with make-it-work materials. He had a homemade ramp for his chair. The dogs were now laying peacefully on the office floor. He had a kitchen/dining room behind the office with a bathroom that was simply plumbing fixtures installed at the edge of the room with a retractable curtain, the kind of set up you might have if you're in a wheelchair. And he had a television. I know all this because Jerry didn't blink before inviting me back, because it was cold. I used his restroom. I sat with his employees (who live there) and Jerry and watched TV. He offered me a beer. I don't drink, but I almost wish I did. You tell me the last time you invited a stranger into your kitchen on a cold night and offered him a beer. Me neither. One of his employees thought I must be a drug runner. No one travels through Eutaw, Alabama on Hwy 11 unless they're avoiding the Highway Patrol. Finally, I had to tell them I'm a preacher. I hate telling people that I'm a preacher because they usually quit acting normal. Two of the employees were a couple. They were migrants, people without homes who work from one place to the next, usually staying a few months at a time in a place. They didn't tell me that, and I could be wrong, but I used to work and be friends with migrants when I was a teenager and they fit my experience. The woman told me that it was cool that I was a preacher and her partner didn't know what to say. The other employee was different, he didn't seem like a migrant, but someone with a struggle. He looked at a sheet of paper. "So, you're a preacher? Do you have any feelings about any dogs?" This was a casino question. The casino had a dog track. He was serious; he wasn't mocking me. I told him I didn't know anything about dogs. He told me that was fine, I could just pick a number I think between one an eight. I told him that I didn't have any feelings at all for those kind of things. Then he started asking me about God's Word. There were several passages that he'd been puzzling over for years. We had a great talk about the Bible and Jesus. Jerry is one of those guys who kind of puts on the rough act on the exterior, but is not quite equal to his first impression. Jerry admitted that many of his guests fall short of the behavioral standards of the state of Mississippi. He wasn't running the Hilton, he was just trying to get by. He offered to let me stay there. One of his employees told me that he had taken in a Mexican woman whose husband had beaten her. She had kids and nowhere to go. The driver make it there in a little over an hour and I left. Those people welcomed a sinner in need, without the slightest hesitation. Don's tow truck called me and I had to meet him. He was a really nice guy, a Christian. He gave me a ride to Motel Row after dropping off Helga. I worked my way down to the Motel 6. I just couldn't pay $79 dollars for a room, especially knowing that the towing bill for the out of state tow at night was going to soak me. It was a good room and it had a King Jimmy Bible. I did some writing. I had no toiletries and neither did the office. Here is a picture of everything in my pockets, which I carried around for two days in my sport coat (more to come). | 
