The Bicycler
Last night I was running an errand, I needed to pickup popcorn for a few children who would soon be watching Cars as their parents attended a meeting. I hadn’t decided where I was going to go to get the popcorn from, but I turned right out of our housing area. One half mile down the road I saw a guy walking and pushing his bicycle, with a flat tire, along at a slow pace. It was a little after 6:30, 37 degrees outside, and very dark. It is a fairly safe guess, due to where we live and the time of day, that he had been pushing his bike from town since he got off work at 5:00. A mile down the road, I decided to go see if he needed a ride. You could hear the frustration in his voice as he stated he only had a half mile left to go. I responded with, “So your fine?” To which he replied gruffly, “Yeah.” I left.
After that a lot of questions popped into my mind. Why did it take me so long to turn around? What kind of question is “So your fine?” in a situation like that? Why didn’t I followup and sincerely offer help to save him the last 10 minutes of his walk? Why had no one else offered to give him a ride? Oh for more compassion.