A Thanksgiving Long Long Ago

Back in BN (before Navy) there is one Thanksgiving I don't think I will ever forget.

One Thanksgiving in the very wee hours a bunch of us went to the outskirts of  White, Georgia, to hunt.  We had a plan.  We remembered so many times of driving on deserted roads and coming across a rabbit in the headlights and they just froze from a moment before they hopped off.  Our plan was for two of us to ride on the fenders with shotgun in hand ready for those headlight-frozen rabbits in mind.  Luckily we came across none.

After a while we headed back to Marietta.  I think we were driving through downtown White and we had a flat tire.  I think it was downtown because there was a service station, a store, and maybe a couple of brick buildings.

We did not have a spare tire, which happened often back then.  It seemed like after the first flat we would have learned to carry a spare.  But we didn't.

It was dark.  There was nothing we could do until daylight.  We sat in the car and do what young men do, talk and cut farts.

After an hour or so the daylight slowly merged in.  We were on the side of the road beside a service station and across the street up a little slope was a neat little country home. 

We could see up behind the country home, up the slope about 40 feet or so was an outhouse.  Larry said, "Look!"  Pointing at the outhouse.

Larry loved to take dumps in outhouses.  He said he was going to go use it.  We tried to talk him out of it but he insisted.  He walked up by the house and proceeded up the slope to the outhouse, opened the door and went in and shut the door.

We were talking and I saw that a matronly lady was walking up the hill in her robe with a magazine in her hand.  I punched my friends to look and we all started giggling.

She opened the door and dropped her magazine.  Larry flung himself out of the outhouse, like a force kicked him out.  When Larry got embarrassed he would always scratch the bridge of his nose or his forehead to cover up his face.  As he bounded out, almost hitting her he was scraching his forehead with one hand and trying to pull his pants up with the other.

And we were down on the highway having fits of laughter.

It was his car.  He jumped into the car and we drove away with the flat flapping to reminding us that we were still had a flat tire.

Just a city block or so down the road was another service station.  We figured out the ownder lived in a house behind the station.  We knocked on his door and he had a used tire he could sell us for a price.  Between us, we fell about $2 short.  The man took it and put on the used tire.

We left and on down the road, near the 41 Highway we ran out of gas.  It is useless to try to find a gas station with no money.

We decided I would hitchhike to my home, get my car, drive over to Larry's house and get some money from his secret hiding place.  He said he parents were out of town for Thanksgiving.   

When I got to my house my mother was preparing dinner and my uncle and aunt Tom and Mary Jo Petty had come for Thanksgiving Dinner.  It was the last time I saw Tom alive.  They tried to get me to stay but I had things to do and I didn't want to bore them with the details.  I don't they would understand and try to help which would mess up their plans.

I got Larry's secret money and headed back up the 41.  As I was going through Cartersville heading north I saw my cluster of friends walking on the south lanes with their thumbs out.

I blew my horn so they would quit hitchiking and turned around to go south at the next redlight.

What if they had caught a ride and how far would I go looking for them.  It was just a matter of good timing and maybe divine intervention, I do beleive.
Or, possibly it is true that God looks out for fools and drunks.