Date: 2003-06-11
From: Atmore, Al.

To: Pearisburg, Virginia
Miles today: 0.0

Papermaker put me on a bus going to Virginia tonight. I could ride cheaper than renting a car, and besides how interesting could a bus ride be? If I am involved with it, it could be pretty interesting. I had not been on a bus for 40 years and this definately had the potential to dredge up some unwelcomed feelings. Luckily for me any of those feelings were displaced by other events of the ride early on. We left Atmore, Al. and stopped about an hour later at a little podunk town in southern Alabama that will remain nameless to protect those involved. As we pulled into a vacant parking lot that was evidently the bus station, there was a sheriff's car sitting there waiting for the bus. Those of us who could see the car of course began wondering what was going on. Was someone going to be pulled off the bus and arrested or what?The deputy got out and met the bus driver. He pulled some papers out of his pocket and handed them to the driver.As the driver looked over them,he shook his head as if to say yes or okay. The deputy then went back tohis car and opened the back door and a man got out and headed for the bus. I could not help but stare at him as he climbed on board. His shirt was covered in blood and he was beaten up about the face. His shirt was torn in several places. He appeared to be slightly drunk, if one can be slightly drunk. He may have been in his late fifties, but looked older. A lot older. He found a seat, with some help from the driver. My seatmate looked at me and at the same time we said, I sure am glad you are sitting next to me. We had not gone very far down the road before the man was hollering asking how many stops until Montgomery,Al. Evidently he didn't get the answer he wanted and the next thing we knew he was trying to get up front to the driver. There were two retired bus drivers riding in the front seat and they managed to get the man to go sit back down,promsing he would be in Montgomery by 10:00pm Here he comes down the aisle again wanting to try to talk to the bus driver about something. It took a litle more force and some help from a rather large passenger to get the man backin his seat. By this time the two Tylenol PM I had taken to help me sleep were proving to be useless to me. We had just gotten back on the road when this guy called out and asked the driver if he would let him offat the next exit. The driver by then was more than happy to oblige the man. So we pulled off the road again at the next exit and let the guy off. He said he was going to try to get a ride to Mobile, Al. to a alcohol rehab   house. He got off and as he got to the last step ofthebus, he turned and with pity in his voice he asked if we would pray for him. He said the situation he was in was not funny and would we pray for him. Before I could get out of my seat to take his hand and say a prayer for him, the bus driver bid him goodnight, closed the door and drove off. I watched as he walked toward the gas station. The slump of his shoulders speaking much louder than his tattered appearance or even the bruises on his face and hands. The ravages of alcohol had robbed him of everything in his life and here is was being put out in the middle of nowhere. My heart ached for him and the rescuerin me wanted to help him. Not just give him a hand, but really help him. But the rational part of me knows better. Living with an alcoholic father taught me volumes about the effects of too much liquor on peoples lives. Was this how it was with my father?Did he die like this man would? Alone in his addiction, without knowing or caring to know that there is a hope? I was on a bus once again leaving my father behind. I was a small child, and it would be years before I ever saw him again. I know part of the deep rescue feelings I felt were connected to that far away day. To try to fix that lost relationship that will never be fixed. I watched the man walk away and cried because I could not help him. I did pray, for a long time I prayed for him, for others like him and for others like me. Sleep was lost on me for the rest of the night. I thought about so many loses in my life as a child. The life that I thought every child lived. The pain I felt when I realized every child did not live as we did. My heart still aches for that nameless man. For the loss in his life. Some will say he caused them, or chose that road, and that maybe true. I just know that I know a man who changes lives, puts broken people back together, a man who gives hope to the hopeless and sets the captives free. A man who gave his life that I might live on this earth in joy and victory and in the next life for ever with him. I wish someone could have told this man about Jesus. But then maybe they did tell him and he didn't listen.Bumpkin