The Big Wheel
Author Unknown
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. I 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 whomever 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 another 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, just those beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up residence in
Indiana? I wondered. I made a deal with the owner of 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 I 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, scrambled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat. Reaching
back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was a 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 were
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 a 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 tha!
t precious morning.
Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out
at The Big Wheel truck stop.
Author Unknown