Friday, July 24, 2015

Bless Men

CAR WOES


 "Would you help me?" she asked. "My battery's gone dead."

I was just about to turn the key in my old car and sat flummoxed, wondering what to do.

"Uh, be glad to help, but I don't have jumper cables."

Just then a man ambled by and she called out asking if he had any. This set in train: man-with-a-plan. 

The fellow pulled out a set of tidily-stored jumper cables. By then I'd pulled my car next to her compact junker, full of two little kids, a baby stroller, toys and car seat, and a small sack of groceries.

The good Samaritan eyed the distance; I'd need to angle my car in. "I'll guide you," he said, waving me in; signaling bear left; stop. In a minute he had her engine started. I leaped in the air and shouted, "YES." 

Nothing to it! He waved over his shoulder as we thanked him.

We two women looked at each other and grinned, grateful for quiet competence from a stranger.

Interesting tides of change, as women have fended off gallantry and turned rude to men trying to help--a milieu in which I remain ungrateful for the liberation of pumping my own gas! 

Thank you, guys, for opening doors and helping with heavy loads.

There's a catalog comes in the mail with sturdy women's work clothes. The women pictured are wielding chain saws, hammers and kayak paddles! Now I've done all that, and admire can-do, but let's hear it for good-hearted men.

When the young woman asked me for help, my own car had been a mess earlier in the day. Scared the heck out of me, with red warning lights, thumping and missing. I'd alerted a friend that I dared not drive anywhere till I got it into the shop.

Her stalwart husband and good neighbor arrived at 7am. He listened to the cacophony, raised his eyebrows and followed me into town, to be sure I made it to the mechanic.

Bless men and their skill sets, their problem-solving and care. 

From the photo essay,
 The Family of Man