The Big Kahuna Plays Good Samaritan
Last night about 11 PM I suddenly got very hungry, and so I grabbed my coat and keys and headed for the nearest 7-11. I picked out a couple of unhealthy snacks, bought a lottery ticket and jumped back in the car. It was a frosty, about 28 degrees, and I turned on the heat. I started for home, and suddenly I saw a little guy in the middle of the road waving for help.
I stopped, listened to his story, and told him to hop in.
His name was Pham, he’s Vietnamese, and he is a year younger than me. But he looks 35. He was maybe a shade over 5 feet tall and weighed 120 pounds with rocks in his pockets.
He had locked his keys in his car, and had been walking for over 6 miles when I picked him up. It was another couple of miles to his house. When he got in the car he was shaking from the cold.
I drove him to his house to get another set of keys, and then back to where he had left his car. While I was driving, he said some remarkable things. He had been in the Vietnamese Army, fighting along side American troops. He said he dreamed every day of coming to America. When the Americans pulled out of Vietnam, the North Vietnamese put him in jail for the next 17 years for helping the Americans.
The whole time he was in jail he dreamed of America, and one day his brother came to the jail and told him they were leaving. To get him out of jail, the whole family had to leave the country.
He walked from jail home, and then the family walked to a boat that took them to Norway, where they stayed for a year. Then they were sponsored to the U.S. by an American Army Officer who knew him.
Pham is now a mechanic in a garage where he fixes American cars. His family, all 15, purchased a large home in Virginia two years ago. They all are working, and half of them work and go to college. “My family is rich,” he told me, “not billionaire rich, but compared to Vietnam, this is heaven.”
“In Vietnam now, only the communists are rich. All the poor people are still poor.”
About 2 miles from his car he said, “I knew you were going to stop and help me. I could feel it, and as soon as you rolled down the window I could feel good energy. I could feel that, and I could feel you had no fear. I know you had no fear because someone else always rides with you.”
And then he just smiled.
I dropped him off, and he gave me his card, and offered to fix my car for free anytime. Then I drove home.
I’ve been in some pretty sticky situations in my life, and I’ve always pulled through somehow. It isn’t the first time someone has told me about the other person riding shotgun, but it’s the first time its ever happened with a complete stranger.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
The S… is still going on. Ten more days at a ridiculous 25% off the merchandise. Get it while the going is good.
Stay aware, alert, and have a plan.
Aloha kaua,
Nui (Big) Kahuna
