6
December 4
Joplin...Christmas Eve Day, 1959...cold and blustery.
Jimmy said his “Byes” to fellow lunch volunteers at the soup kitchen. They had served haggard, empty-eyed men and women.
Buttoning his coat, Jimmy headed to his new F-100. He slid in and started the engine.
A woman stood at the passenger"s door. She motioned for Jimmy to let her in. He stretched himself across the seat to the door lock and lifted it. The woman appeared to have stepped out of some backwoods.
Stunned, Jimmy asked, “Ma'am, can I take you some place?”
With a grunt and a pointed index finger, she motioned north. One block north on Main, they came to a stop sign.
“Which way, ma'am?” Jimmy asked politely.
She motioned left. Jimmy turned left, went another block, came to another stop sign.
“Okay...ma'am...which way?”
She motioned left again. They came to another stop sign. Left again. They came back to Main, a block away from the soup kitchen.
Jimmy turned onto Main, pulled over, stopped, and said kindly but disingenuously, “Ma"am...I...I need to be someplace...right up here is the soup kitchen...I'll drop you of back there.”
Timidly, she asked, "Could you take me to a liquor store?"
Lowering his head, Jimmy answered, "No ma'am."
Jimmy stopped at the soup kitchen. The woman turned, sighed, said softly, “Love you,” and got out.
"Gosh," well-versed but naive Jimmy thought. "Lord. let her sighing come before You... and purge away my sin.”
Larry Inman