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The surest, if not the fastest, way to meet nice people is to drive an old car which is prone to occasional roadside ailments.
Saturday afternoon, we were on our way to Taylor Park
for the annual Love it or leave it party.
(As you
might infer from that name, this was originally an
Independence Day gathering of some Salidans with attitude
problems; the date now changes from year to year.)
Our '65 Dodge Dart quit running at Doyleville. There is
no ville
at Doyleville; from what I could tell,
Doyleville consists entirely of a highway sign. A friendly
state trooper asked if he could call anybody for us.
The problem was this: Everyone I know nearby who might be reckless enough to pull a car through the mountains was very likely already in Taylor Park. Dave and Suzanne Ward's comfortable cabin has electricity and running water, but it doesn't have a telephone.
Our trooper went back on patrol, and we figured we'd catch a ride into Gunnison, where we could make calls until we found a ride to Salida or Taylor Park.
Half an hour later, after hundreds of cars had whizzed by, it dawned on me that this was the worst weekend of the year, maybe the century, for hitching a ride in Colorado.
Last week, Rex Hayden Miller of Rollinsville stopped near his home to help two men whose car wasn't running. Miller was found dead in a ditch the next morning. If anyone deserves the death penalty, Miller's killers do -- after slow torture. Crimes like that destroy the fabric of society by making people afraid to act on their decent impulses.
Fortunately, there were people who had not heard of the Miller murder, including a couple from Farmington, N.M., who gave us a ride in their Cadillac. He gave us a card which announced his membership in the Christian Motorcyclists Association.
We found Pat Tipler, a nurse we know in Gunnison, who lent us her Jeep for the trip to Taylor Park. Chris Schirmer drove us down to get our gear from the car. Sunday, Chris Byars took Martha and the girls back to Salida, so that they could be spared the sight of Kirby Perschbacher and I violating any number of traffic statutes.
A state trooper did spot us: a stake-bed truck, laden with overhanging logs, using two chains to pull me and my old Dodge. But he must have been in a charitable mood. At the top of Monarch Pass, we disconnected so I could coast; I rolled clear to Maysville before I needed towing again.
So, everything came out pretty well, despite the despair we felt for a while on Saturday afternoon in Doyleville. I am sure that of the people who drove past a family standing next to a dead car in a remote spot, many of them had been to church. I am most grateful that two of them were paying attention when the minister talked about the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
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