Laughter Salad

I was enjoying the day and the ride, when, without warning, my bike broke down. A closer inspection determined that the tiniest and most essential screw that holds the derailleur together was gone. In all of my years of bike riding, it had never occurred to me that this kind of thing could happen. Without a functioning derailleur to help me shift through the gears, I could not ride my bike.

I looked around for help, but all I could see was a small town on a distant hill – a very long hill that I had just ridden down! So, I began walking uphill with my broken bike. I was angry, scared and confused. I was only in Idaho, and I still had thousands of miles to go – this was not good!

I made it to the town and then to a car repair shop. I explained that I was a cyclist from New Jersey, riding my bike across the country, and I needed a small screw for the derailleur. Then the mechanic interrupted, “New Jersey?”
“That’s right, “ I said.

“Wait until I tell Fred that you are here!” he said. “You have to meet him. He will be so glad to know that you are here!
I felt uneasy and worried and wondered what in the world I had gotten myself into. Here I was, alone in the middle of Idaho, no cell phone, no money, a broken bicycle, and this strange mechanic was talking to me about some man named “Fred.”

After looking through the collection of screws that he had on hand, he realized that none of them would fit in this tiny spot. The mechanic decided that the best place to find a screw this tiny was the sewing machine shop. We walked there with my bicycle and I explained my story to the shop owner while the mechanic went to tell Fred – who ever he was – that I had arrived.

When I hoisted my bike up the stairs and rolled in on the wood floor of the sewing machine shop, I couldn’t help but wonder what this was all about. I rolled my bike to the back of the shop and the owner and I started taking out screws to see what would fit. He was very kind and patient with this very unusual task, even when he had to file down the final screw to make it fit.

Some 20 or 30 boxes of sewing machine screws later we found one that fit. As the owner walked me back to the automotive shop she told me that when a stranger arrives in a town with less than 1,000 people, word of a new arrival travels fast. Sure enough, as we left the shop, three people walked by. One shouted, “Oh! You must be Kimberly! Fred will be so glad to see you!”

It crossed my mind that perhaps I had entered some science-fiction world, some sort of twilight zone experience where I would be spending the rest of my life – never to see my friends again.

Back at the mechanics, we put the sewing machine part into the derailleur and my bicycle worked! I used the shop phone to call my friends and waited for them to pick me up.

Moments later, a van pulled up and a frail, elderly man carrying two brown bags of vegetables got out. He walked into the shop and looked at me with wide eyes and a smile and said, “You must be Kimberly!”
I said with a very nervous smile, “You must be Fred.”

As he walked towards me, I could see a strange sadness on his face. He offered me the bags of vegetables that he had just picked from his garden. Then in a shaking voice, with his eyes welling up, he said, “I am so glad to see you. I can’t believe that you are actually here.”

Fred asked me where I was from in New Jersey. Through more questions, we were surprised to find out that we were from the same area near Flemington. Oddly enough, it turned out that Fred has also been a good friend with some of my high school teachers, including my driver’s ed teacher and my running coach.

Fred then began to tell me his story. He told me that he had left New Jersey suddenly about 12 years ago because something very bad had happened and he could not bring himself to return.

All of those years he had been praying for forgiveness. With tears streaming down his face, he said, “I prayed that if someone from my home town in New Jersey comes to this small down in the middle of Idaho, it would be a miracle and a sign from God that I had been forgiven.”

I was stunned and so was he. We stood for what seemed like an eternity, speechless, and then gave each other a big hug. The idea of what had happened was humbling, unbelievable, and miraculous.