I saw the car as we turned right on our way home Monday from a quick grocery trip.
It was a Honda being pushed up Highway 18 by a young woman on the back bumper and a driver who was leaning into the door frame while reaching inside to turn the steering wheel.
Flashbacks washed over me from the times as a youth when I had misjudged the gas gauge and had to do the Fred Flintstone routine with my ride.
So, Kindra and I hooked a U and went back to help push the car the last 100 yards to the gas station on the corner.
By the time we got there, another man and a couple of teenagers had pulled over, too, so there were several sets of legs and lower backs deployed.
We soon had the car rolling. Even uphill, it was going quickly.
So quickly that I had a difficult time keeping up. Of course, realizing that I was being outpushed made me more determined to keep up, so I stayed head-down and kept the legs going.
By the time we shoved it to the gas pump, I was gasping for air like a carp out of water and didn’t fully get my breath until we were halfway home.
I felt glad to have helped, and Kindra concurred, even though we agreed it was nice to have a topped-off tank in our minivan.
Thinking back, I believe the last time I had gotten such a workout pushing a car was in 1971.
I had entered the bull riding at a rodeo in Antlers, and my best friend, Nelson, who lived across the road, had offered to drive us there in his Mustang, a dark blue 1970 model.
That night, we headed back from Antlers to Fitzhugh and took what we believed to be the shortest route, which took us on the old Highway 61, a blacktopped road that was seriously over-identified as a highway.
About the time we turned off on the county road near Harold Wingard’s dairy, Nelson checked his gas gauge and announced that we might not have enough in the tank to get home.
It was a little past midnight on a Saturday night and we were three miles from home.
Two of the miles were a long, steady grade until you hit the crest close to Kidd Tolliver’s place.
Then it was a steep downhill and another hill by Mr. Mitchusson’s dairy. Once we cleared that, we would be home free.
There was about a half-mile left on the first hill when the engine heaved a couple of times and died.
We let it coast as long it would, then jumped out and pushed.
We leaned into the car like you see the old guys with ropes towing a barge on a canal. We kept hoping to see the friendly lights of a car in the distance, but such was not to be.
Finally, sweating and panting, we hit the crest of the hill and jumped in on the run. The momentum carried us almost to the top of the next hill, so we only had to push a few feet to get to the downhill that led home.
I was mighty happy to hear the tires crunch the gravel of our driveway.
Almost as happy as I was to get the Honda to the gas pump on Monday.