The Big Wheel

In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six

hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their

father was gone. The boys ranged from three months to

seven years; their sister was two.

Their Dad had never been much more than a presence

they feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on

the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under

their beds. He did manage to leave $15 a week to buy

groceries.

Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no

more beatings, but no food either.

If there was a welfare system in effect in southern

Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about

it.

I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and

then put on my best homemade dress. I loaded them

into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a

job.

The seven of us went to every factory, store and

restaurant in our small town. No luck.

The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be

quiet while I tried to convince whomever would listen

that I was willing to learn or do anything.

I had to have a job. Still no luck.

The last place we went to, just a few miles out of

town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had

been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big

Wheel.

An old lady named Granny owned the place and she

peeked out of the window from time to time at all

those kids.

She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night

until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour

and I could start that night.

I raced home and called the teenager down the street

that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to

come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She

could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would

already be asleep.

This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made

a deal.

That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our

prayers we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job.

And so I started at the Big Wheel.

When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter

up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip

money-fully half of what I averaged every night.

As the weeks went by, heating bills added another

strain to my meager wage.

The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny

balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with

air on the way to work and again every morning before

I could go home.

One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to

go home and found four tires in the back seat. New

tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those

beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up

residence in Indiana? I wondered.

I made a deal with the owner of the local service

station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires,

I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a

lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to

do the tires.

I was now working six nights instead of five and it

still wasn't enough.

Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no

money for toys for the kids.

I found a can of red paint and started repairing and

painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the

basement so there would be something for Santa to

deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry

too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the

boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to

repair.

On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking

coffee in the Big Wheel.

These were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a

state trooper named Joe.

A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the

Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball

machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked

through the wee hours of the morning and then left to

get home before the sun came up.

When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on

Christmas morning I hurried to the car. I was hoping

the kids wouldn't wake up before I managed to get home

and get the presents from the basement and place them

under the tree. (We had cut down a small cedar tree

by the side of the road down by the dump.)

It was still dark and I couldn't see much, but there

appeared to be some dark shadows in the car-or was

that just a trick of the night?

Something certainly looked different, but it was hard

to tell what. When I reached the car I peered warily

into one of the side windows. Then my jaw dropped in

amazement.

My old battered Chevy was filled full to the top with

boxes of all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the

driver's side door, scrambled inside and kneeled in

the front facing the back seat.

Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box.

Inside was a whole case of little blue jeans, sizes

2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of

shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside

some of the other boxes: There were candy and nuts and

bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous

ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes.

There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies,

pie filling and flour.

There was a whole bag of laundry supplies and

cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and

one beautiful little doll.

As I drove back through empty streets as the sun

slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my

life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never

forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that

precious morning. Yes, there were angels in Indiana

that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the

Big Wheel truck stop.