Restored

Yesterday, I went down to Sylacauga to recover the blue 1972 pickup that was stolen from my parents old home earlier this year. Back in June, someone just backed up to the truck and snatched it out from under the shed where it was sitting. Having anything stolen is disheartening and tends to make you doubt your fellow man.

The truck was recently recovered and as I said, yesterday I went down to tow it home. Unfortunately I failed to check the air pressure in the tires on my tow dolly. When I got the pickup loaded, the dolly tires were sagging down very low. The guys at the storage yard where I picked up the truck told me that the Shell station down the hill had air, so I headed that way. About half way to the station, the left tire on the dolly pulled off the rim. I drove onto the shoulder and proceeded to the driveway of the Shell Station.

I was not in my regular vehicle and did not have a 4 way lug wrench or a jack. As I stood there trying to figure out what to do, a man walked up and said looks like you are having tire trouble, can I help? I told him there was not much he could do as I did not have my jack or lug wrench. He said I have a jack and a lug wrench. He went and got his tools and helped me get the tire and wheel off. I took them over to the air pump at the Shell station and as luck would have it, the tire took air and popped back out to the rim. I put it back on the dolly, but had failed to put enough air in it, so he and I had to take it off and do the whole thing again. He produced a tire guage and helped me get the correct amount of air in the tire.


While this was going on, another man walked up and told me of a tire place down the road about three miles that was reasonable and fast. I asked him the name and he said Miller Tire. I told him I was a Miller and he asked me where I was from. I told him that I was originally from Rockford. He said I know you, you are Bubba Miller. I thought he was thinking of Buck Miller and told him no Buck was a distant relative and that I was Denson Miller's son. He said not Buck, Bubba, your daddy ran Miller's Garage. It was then that I realized that he was referring to by what everyone at the garage called me, which was Brother. (By the way, this just goes to re-inforce what I have always said, Bubba is a word for Brother, probably coming from young children mispronouncing Brother.) Anyway I told him you mean Brother and he said that's right, Brother. Next he said, "Your daddy bought me my first car." Seems that this guy, whose name was Doyle Harris, worked around my fathers shop when he was young. It would have been in the mid 1970's after I had finished college and had gone to work full time for the Power Company. He washed tools, cleaned up and just helped out in general. He said one day a man came in and tried to sell my father a 1950 model flathead Ford car for $35. My father told the guy , "I don't need that damn thing" but then Doyle said my father turned to him and said "How about you?" He told my father that he would like to have it but did not have $35. He said my father said, hell don't worry about that. So Doyle and my father got in my fathers truck, probably the same one I was retriving yesterday, and rode over to where the 50 model Ford was located. He said my father paid the man for the car and then Doyle drove it back to the garage. He said it had a rod knocking in the motor but he was tickled to be driving his own car. When Doyle finished telling the story, he shook my hand and left.

Me and the first man ,who had stopped to help me, finished putting the tire back on the tow dolly and he was about to leave. I asked him his name and he said James Thomas. I told him if he was ever in Pelham or Rockford and needed help, to just give me a call, I'm in the book.

James Thomas and Doyle Harris did a lot for me yesterday. Of course James helped me fix my tire and get back on the road and Doyle gave me some good advice on where to get tire work done, but they did so much more than that. With their willingness to help a total stranger and with Doyle's recounting the story of the good deed my father had done all those year ago, they both gave me renewed hope in the humanity of man. The things that theives stole from me in June of this year, my dad's pickup and my confidence in my fellow man, were both restored to me yesterday.