“Have you ever picked up a hitchhiker?”

“Have you ever picked up a hitchhiker?”

Just about every time I see someone I stop. I kind of got out of the habit in the last couple of years, moved to a big city and all that, my girlfriend wasn’t too enthusiastic about the practice.

Then something happened to me that changed me, and I am back to offering rides habitually. If you would indulge me, it’s a long story and has almost nothing to do with hitchhiking other than happening on a road.

This past year I have had 3 instances of car trouble. A blowout on a freeway, a bunch of blown fuses, and an out-of-gas situation. All of them were while driving other people’s cars which, for some reason, makes it worse on an emotional level.

It makes it worse on a practical level as well, what with the fact that I carry things like a jack and extra fuses in my car, and know enough not to park facing downhill on a steep incline with less than a gallon of fuel.

Anyway, each of these times this happened, I was frustrated with how people would not bother to help me. I spent hours on the side of the freeway waiting, watching roadside assistance vehicles drive past me, for AAA to show.

The 4 gas stations I asked for a gas can at told me that they couldn’t loan them out “for my safety” but I could buy a really flimsy 1-gallon one with no cap for $15. It was enough, each time, to make you say things like “this country is going downhill.”

But you know who came to my rescue all three times? My Mexican neighbors. None of them spoke much English. But one of those gentlemen had a profound effect on me.

He was the guy that stopped to help me with a blowout with his whole family of 6 in tow. I was on the side of the road for close to 4 hours. Big jeep, blown rear tire, had a spare but no jack. I had signs in the windows of the car, big signs that said NEED A JACK and offered money.

No luck. Right as I am about to give up and just hitch out there, a van pulls over and a man bounds out. He sizes the situation up and calls for his youngest daughter who speaks English. He conveys through her that he has a jack but it is too small for the Jeep so we will need to brace it.

He produces a saw from the van and cuts a log out of a downed tree on the side of the road. We rolled it over, put his jack on top, and bam, in business. I start taking the wheel off and, if you can believe it, I broke his tire iron. It was one of those collapsible ones and I wasn’t careful and I snapped the head I needed clean off.

No worries, he runs to the van, gives it to his wife and she is gone in a flash, down the road to buy a tire iron. She is back in 15 minutes, we finish the job with a little sweat and effort (the log was starting to give), and I am a very happy man.

We are both dirty and sweaty. The wife produces a large water jug for us to wash our hands in. I tried to put a 20 in the man’s hand but he wouldn’t take it so I instead gave it to his wife as quietly as I could. I thanked them profusely.

I asked the little girl where they lived, thinking maybe I could send them a gift for being so awesome. She says they live in Mexico. They are here so mommy and daddy can pick peaches for the next few weeks.

After that they are going to pick cherries then go back home. She asks if I have had lunch and when I told her no she gave me a tamale from their cooler, the best tamale I have ever had.

So, to clarify, a family that is undoubtedly working harder than most, on a seasonal basis where time is money, took an hour or two out of their day to help some stranger on the side of the road when people in tow trucks were just passing me by. Wow…

But we aren’t done yet. I thank them again and walk back to my car and open the foil on the tamale because I am starving at this point and what do I find inside? My $20 bill! I whirl around and run up to the van and the guy rolls his window down.

He sees the $20 in my hand and just shakes his head no like he won’t take it. All I can think to say is “Por Favor, Por Favor, Por Favor” with my hands out. The man just smiles, shakes his head and, with what looked like great concentration, tried his hardest to speak to me in English:

“Today you…. tomorrow me.”

Rolled up his window, drove away, his daughter waving to me in the rear view. I sat in my car eating the best tamale of all time and I just cried. It has been a rough year and nothing has gone my way. This was so unexpected I just couldn’t hold it together.

In the 5 months since, I have changed a couple of tires, given a few rides to gas stations and, once, went 50 miles out of my way to get a girl to an airport. I won’t accept money. Every time I tell them the same thing when we are through:

“Today you…. tomorrow me.”