Dennis and the Miracle

I stopped blogging for the month of August to keep the reading focus on Peaks for Parkinsons. I stopped, but this family didn't stop and Dennis and the Miracle are one of those times worth mentioning.

The first week of August, we had gone camping up at Lake Elmore State Park in Vermont. Actually most of this family was camping, while the runner was a Green Mountain Running Camp at Lydonville State College. The thinking was if you make the trip up there to drop off the camper, you might as well stay instead of driving back and forth; but I digress.

Despite receiving over three and a half inches of rain, it was a great camping trip with fishing, walking, swimming, and a lot of Cribbage. Good stuff... The trip over, the Rig and trailer packed, the runner picked up, we were on our way home, just over the Massachusetts boarder, when the trailer experienced a blow out.

Right after the pop, I said, "Can't be..." but it was. The man pulled over to the side of the road. The flat was on the traffic side, of course. A huge and complete blow out through the side of the tire. Both of us out of the car, we were clearing camping equipment away from the jack stands and jack when voice came out of no where.

"Do you need help?"

I turned to see a huge man with a military emblem sewn on his shirt standing next to me. Really where did this guy come from? My answer, "Let me ask my husband?"

"Oh, you're not alone?", replied the stranger. Did he think I was a woman alone on the side of this highway? Were the kids safe in the car? What were this man's intentions?

Nervous, I asked the husband, "Do we need help?"

Poking his head out of the back of the Rig, he looked at me and then answered the stranger, "We might." And we did. For we had made the mistake of thinking the lug wrench that fit the car tires, also handled the trailer. It didn't. And when this became apparent, Denise -- the stranger, returned to his vehicle which was parked on the side of the road ahead of ours, and brought back the correct tool.

As my husband and I changed the tire, Dennis stood 20 feet down the road, waving drivers away from us. Putting himself in dangers path, for us, strangers.

Fifteen minutes, that is all it took for us to stop, change the flat, thank a Samaritan, and be back on our way. Fifteen minutes, but that isn't the miracle.

The miracle came after wards, when we were getting the tire replaced. Our mechanic suggested we change the other tire. The tread looked fine. Why change it, was me first thought. But when my husband took the tire off the trailer, he noticed it had 3 bubbles on the inside wall. We could have easily had two blow out...