Watched Over
A story of Miracles ... and one very interesting man.

This is a story of many impossible events and one likely event that started it all. There is no way to lead into this so I will simply tell it all as abruptly as it all happened.

It had been a long week. I worked hard to make up pewter for orders and stores. Fully stocked we were ready to hit the road. I was married at the time and my wife kept having vision of a fire. So thinking she better take heed of the message decided maybe the apartment was going to burn. So she gathered up her important genealogy she was working on and a few more things and put it in the back of the camper.

We had driven a long way that day and were many states away from home. We were heading east to sell to stores throughout the midwest. We had a little Toyota tent top camper. It was a peculiar little camper, quite old, but generally worked well. We liked it's size and open space inside.

We dropped off an order at a store in St Louis and were on our way out of town. It was late at night by this time. We were on the high bridges over downtown about ready to cross the river into quiet Illinois prairie. Then "Bang" the truck suddenly dropped like a rock. It was more of a drop than a blown tire. Then we heard a crunch under the truck. We were abruptly skidding to a stop right in the road. There was no time or space to do anything else.

I turned on the flashers hoping nobody would hit us. There was smoke in the air. I jumped into the camper and out the door to see what I needed to do. The road was clear except there was a car parked in front of us? I ran up and discovered a wheel to our truck was under her front bumper. She was a bit upset as I pulled it out but there was no damage to her car. She hurriedly went on her way.

Why was our entire wheel off the truck? I went to look and the axle had broken. The wheel flew off and the truck had slammed onto the frame. I looked for the smoke and saw that the carpet and floor in the back of the truck was smoldering right under her genealogy case. I made sure it was out and was glad it hadn't caught fire yet. I thought she sure heard the message but misinterpreted what it meant as we often do. She put her case right in the possible fire. OOPS!

What was the crunch and where were the sparks from was my next thought? Was there anything else almost on fire? I looked under the truck and somehow while skidding to a stop the drive shaft buckled up and slammed into the fuel tank. It crunched the fuel tank and bent it about a fourth the way in. The bent up tank was dragging on the pavement grinding away the metal just as we stopped. Somehow in all of that the fuel did not leak gas. The tank did not wear through yet with all of the sparks and grinding. The massive crunch didn't break it open. And somehow the plywood floor to the camper and carpet was smoldering but had not yet caught fire. We were one moment from exploding. Perhaps a few more feet of skidding down the highway riding on the fuel tank was all it would have taken. It was a miracle nothing more happened. A miracle we were alive.

We were stopped and OK. One moment we were driving a couple hours from a nice stop for the night. A moment later we were parked, on a high bridge, in the dark, in the right lane, on a curve, of a high speed bridge, over St. Louis. I grabbed a flashlight and went to warn drivers into the other lane. We were just before the state line and no police would have a reason to be on this stretch of highway. We waited hoping someone would call for help. This was before cell phones were common so it was a long wait. We were stuck there on a bridge with a large crowded city literally right below our feet. We could look straight down on all the houses and businesses. And we had no way to get help. What a paradox. Eventually someone called for help and soon we had a tow to a motel for the night to rest and regroup.

Clearly Many Miracles kept us alive that night. We were literally one spark away from the fuel tank busting open. The floor and carpet was extremely hot from the fuel tank sparks and were smoldering but had not ignited yet. Nobody had crashed into us on the hard to see corner of the road. And we somehow had simply stopped in the lane and not lost control with a wheel off on this very high bridge. We survived fine although rattled from the experience. The next day we moved the truck to a relative's farm where it could sit as we tried to figure out if it was repairable.

The camper clearly needed a new fuel tank which was easy. A drive shaft would need to be custom made for this long camper. All workable. But the rear axle brings us to the next miraculous part of this story. ...

I called all over the country that week and was having no luck finding an axle to fit this truck. I found out details on why it broke. The camper builder had put the wrong rim on this truck which ultimately led to them breaking axles. That was easy to fix. But after an exhaustive search we came up completely empty handed on finding a one ton axle. Little Toyota pickups did not come with a One Ton Axle. All little pickups were half ton and could not hold the weight. These campers were custom built and not normal Toyotas. So we were pretty much stalled with no solutions to getting our camper ever running again.

Disappointed I decided to get back to Colorado and grab our Nissan Pickup that was at home sitting in the driveway. A long trip but it seemed like the best immediate solution. It would give us at least something to drive. My parents were heading to Kansas so they gave me a ride half way home. I caught a bus from there the rest of the way across Kansas, on over the mountains, and into the valley. I planned on taking a day or two to regroup and get ready for the long drive back to far eastern Missouri. I continued to call everywhere on an axle and the answers were all the same. There was no such thing as a one ton axle for these old small Toyatas. It did not exist.

It was my last day in town before heading east. I was downtown running errands and noticed someone walking down the sidewalk towards me. He sort of looked like a homeless person, yet his energy was immense. He really stood out. He was a young Hispanic man maybe in his mid 20s. But he had a very powerful presence. Most would have not given him a second glance but he really grabbed my attention.
He walked up smiling and asked me if it's OK to hitchhike here? Without a moments thought I simply said "Where do you need to go?"

Everyone had helped me all week from rescuing the camper, to a safe location it could sit, to getting a ride halfway back out here, to the Miracle of simply being in one piece through all that. I was very thankful for being alive and fine. I surely could help this guy out with what ever he needed. I said "Hop in."

He said he needed to go the next town south. It was about a 20 mile trip down there. I said I would gladly take him there. As we drove we talked about many interesting things. He was very intelligent and had quite a witty command of words. He was an alert clever person. At one point he brought up the subject if I had ever seen ships in the valley? UFOs from the Sky People? This was not very out of the ordinary for the valley as most of us had seen something there. I don't remember what he said on the subject but he was quite knowledgeable. And it made the drive go faster with the interesting conversation.

When we made it to the next town south he had me go just past and turn into a little short street of older mobile homes spaced out in the desert here. He said his Grandmother's was the one on the end and she was expecting him. I pulled up and he thanked me as he got out. I said thank you for the nice conversation and wished him well. As I drove away, I turned to look back one more time at this very interesting younger gentleman I had met. To my surprise he was gone. ... He had simply vanished! ... He could not have gone anywhere. He didn't have time to make it to her door or around the side of her house even if he was running. There were no trees or bushes or shelter of any kind. It was wide open desert space. He had simply vanished in two or three seconds. I stopped the truck and looked. There was no sign of him.

I slowly drove back to the highway bewildered. OK? What do I make of that? I've seen many strange things in my life but what was this? He simply vanished. I pulled up to the stop sign at the highway and waited as a wrecker truck went past. It was towing a small Toyota Pickup. I pulled out behind it and thought, Pour guy. Broken down like me. It slowed down to a crawl as it went through town. It seemed way slower than it needed to be. Then it stopped and very slowly began to turn into a junk yard. It was as if it were trying it's hardest to get my attention. Like it was waving orange flags asking if I was paying attention. I was still in my head trying to figure out the disappearing gentleman. Where did he go? The wrecker and little Toyota pick up crawled off the highway like it was herding turtles. That's when I finally came to my senses and noticed. - There ... in Giant Letters .... on the back of the tailgate ... Letters that only someone deep in thought about disappearing people would have missed seeing .... it said ... "ONE TON"!  

What??? Wait! That's impossible!
You're kidding? There it was.

They never offered one ton pickups. And who would write that in giant letters across a tailgate? I obviously followed the wrecker into the junk yard. The man who owned the yard said the guy just blew the engine this morning. The truck was toast. Not worth repairing. I asked him if I could have the whole back end out of it. Axle and Springs and all. He said I sure could, and quoted me a very reasonable price. I arranged to pick it all up the next day.

Wow.
There were no words to describe this.

How did this happen? Who was the gentleman that showed up and asked for a ride 20 miles out of my way to the next town? Someone I would take notice of and who I could not refuse. A man who brought me far out of my way this morning to precisely where I needed to be. He had brought me exactly to the place and time where this tow truck happened to be dragging that truck. A truck that just happened to blow it's engine this morning and not any other morning. A truck that does not exist. If any part of this day was different I wouldn't have seen it. All of this was impossible. A Miracle.

Who was this man?
An Angel? A Sky Person? And where did he go?

In a few weeks I had the old camper back on the road and we were back on our journeys.  I have no explanations for any of this story. A series of unexplainable moments perfectly orchestrated. I thank God for all the rescues that week and keeping us alive. And thank you for bringing the curious gentleman that day. I will never know down here what all happened that morning and who he was. Maybe someday I will. But I am Thankful and I know ...
          Yes, Miracles happen!
                    We are watched over.