The Angel (?) who brought me gasoline when stranded

When moving lock, stock and barrel up to Nashville to try my hand at Country music (although I write, perform and record Folk/Rock/ music--I had hopes that my songs could be converted into Country songs), I was pulling a U-Haul trailer with my old--not vintage--1962 Chevy Impala that had a broken gas gage. I was about 100 miles outside of Nashville along a heavily wooded, lonely stretch of Interstate with smoke puffing out of the 200k miles engine that I had only just bought a few days before I set out on this adventure, as I wanted to have as much cash money with me until I found a job and a place to live, not knowing a soul in Nashville, so I sold my fairly new paid off car and other things and bought the 62 Chevy for $250.00 (It's now worth around $25,000.00). It didn't have a dent on it and no rust, but the inside looked like a hurricane tore it apart, with duct tape holding the seats together and door panel’s in-place.

Driving up this small mountain, or very large hill, the car began to spit, sputter and miss out and finally ran out of gas almost to the top, with the over-weighted U-Haul trying to pull me back down that mountain. I was able to quickly back the car over to the shoulder and kick on the parking brake, then I jumped out and jammed my safety brick under the back wheel (I carried that brick with me--just in case, while towing that trailer. It was one of those strange thoughts you don't understand the whys and wherefores of; you just do it.

I knew the car was out of gas, as I had been jotting down the miles after each gas up and was trying to make it to the next town, only about 15 miles away, and this was in the pre-dawn hours of a Sunday morning.

I opened the trunk the get the 2-gallon gas can out, when lo and behold; it wasn't there! I banged the side of my head with my fist when I remembered where it was: at the very first gas station where I had filled up before leaving New Orleans, some 500 miles behind me.

I got back into the car and watched the other cars and trucks zooming on by on their merry way to parts unknown to me, and there I sat, wondering what I was going to do next.

Just about everything I owned was in that Chevy and U-Haul, and leaving it all behind on the side of the Interstate was so far out of my thoughts that I couldn't even ponder it.

I sat there, looking over to my right at the dense wooded area, seeing myself in my sleeping bag huddled around a small campfire, eating packaged sandwiches.

Suddenly, I felt the car shake a bit and heard someone at the rear, messing around, or something. I opened the door and stepped out to find this man with such a common looking face, that five minutes later I couldn't recall it, no, not even now. He was unscrewing the gas cap as he then started pouring gasoline from his big gas can into my Chevy's tank.

I greeted him with a smile two miles wide and asked him how he knew that I was out of gas? All he said was, "It sure is going to be a nice day, isn't it?"

Standing there, dumbfounded, I watched him pour the gasoline into the car until he poured in the last drop out of his can, and then he screwed on the gas cap and smiled at me and started to turn to walk away. I tried to stop him by saying, "Say man, let me pay you for the gas and your trouble!"

He cocked his head over his shoulder as he walked back towards his pickup truck (make, model and color I couldn't recall--at all), "Just help the next guy out, and you'll pay me back in full."

I yelled out, "What's your name?" To which he just waved the back of his hand at me, got into his truck, and drove on away, up and over the top of the mountain, and he was gone.

It was enough gasoline for me to make it to the next town to fill up the Chevy at the only gas station that was just opening. I went inside the gas station, bought a coke, sat down, and tried my best to remember his face--his pickup truck color--the clothes he was wearing--anything about him, but try as I did--I couldn't.

I used to think that it never actually happened: it was a daydream from a weary all night driver or something, because I have such a good memory, certainly about faces: yes, I always say, "I may forget someone's name, but I NEVER forget a face!"

I did help out the 'next guy,' several of them, as they became many . . .

Countless family, friends and strangers have told me over the years when I relate that story, that the man was an 'Angel' sent to help me, and that I must have really been in good standing with God.

I always have tried to be in good standing with God and my fellow man, women and children, although I don't keep the scores in that regard.

And yet, I still wonder about that day--and about that guy . . .

* Dedication: For that man, whomever he was.

Jason Greywolf Leigh

Why I am starting to hate America

I hope that title got your attention as most of my titles do. (I’m lucky that way).

I was born in a small Texas town, although my family did not live there; they were only visiting there when I decided to come into this world. I had never even been to that small town until just a few years ago when I drove there on purpose; a full grown man.

We grew up, my siblings and I, with a mother and father who were not racists, nor did they care to be around such people or to expose us children to them. I have spent many decades not being a racist, although disliking anyone of any race who caused me or my loved ones any problems. It mattered not the color of their skin if they did cause a problem; they were in the wrong and that was all that mattered.

I honorably fought in a war to protect the Rights of Americans; not the rights of illegals. I further hate the fact that my fellow Veterans, throughout America’s history, gave up their lives and became disabled to protect these Rights, which appear to be all in vain, due to the illegal aliens that I am addressing.

I am beginning to hate America, or what I was taught and learned by living here as to what America should and should not be, so allow me to rectify the title and state that I HATE WHAT AMERICA IS BECOMING.

I hate the fact that illegals (mostly Mexicans—but not exclusively of that country) can walk or swim across the border and take direly needed jobs away from Americans, simply because they will work for next to nothing, or just below minimum wages.

I hate the fact that they can come here and obtain free medical attentions that legal Americans cannot receive, as well as funding—free money—that Americans cannot get though their heads be below the waters and the world is pulling in on them and all seems to be the less, when these illegals laughingly float through our legal, medical and educational systems like balloons in the passing wind at a county fair.

I hate that our laws aren’t written to disallow these people from obtaining the mentioned benefits (and some I haven’t mentioned), and I hate the employers who hire them to line their pockets with ill-gotten gains, who are also protected by laws to do so.

I hate the fact that these illegals have ‘networks’ that tell them how to leap through the legal loops holes in order to obtain the mentioned benefits and stay in America and encourage them to make more babies for the sake of more money in benefits rather than to have a child out of love.

I hate our election process that disallows the ‘popular vote’ and puts someone into public office by means of an ‘electoral college,’ which can be said to be a form of ‘lobbyists,’ making General elections meaningless for registered voters (‘electoral colleges’ are made up of our elected officials who are supposed to extend their vote based upon what the majority of voters decide by in voting ballots, but they rarely do, as is proved in all elections where the majority of votes cased are not adhered to), because it is these elected officials who make the laws that allow illegals into America and protect them by yet, other laws.

I hate what America is becoming because there is very little that ‘We the People’ can do to change this situation of illegals, which is the ONLY topic I have addressed herein.

But I do not hate what America has become and is becoming enough to cause any violence or harm to anyone, fore that would go against my personal belief that America is ‘The Land of the Free’ and ‘The Home of the Brave,’ because ‘free’ and ‘brave’ people do not resort to violence to force their will upon others who are not free and brave. This is meant to state that only ‘cowards’ take advantage of a free society such as America, the way that these mentioned illegals (and their American employers) do, and the only decent means of preventing such acts is to change the laws that allow them to get by with taking advantage of those laws that were meant to protect the innocent; not unwanted illegal aliens.

In closing, I repeat my assertion that I HATE WHAT AMERICA IS BECOMING, because we cannot love something that is so wrong that it borders upon being evil, and we should not be forced into abiding by the status quo and have our hands and our minds tied up and tangled, which prevents us from making the needed changes when our votes are meaningless and our elected officials are part of the problem and not a part of the solution.

The one true reality, although an irony herein, is that I am not a ‘hater,’ but a ‘lover’ of America and my fellow human beings. God taught me that much.

Sincerely—in truth,

Jason Greywolf Leigh

Email: jasonsos@digitex.net Website: http://jasonleigh.org

“No fool—is a fool—until he sees that—others are the fool.”

© 1971 by Jason Leigh