Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Today is Christmas, the date on the calendar when we celebrate the earthly birth of Jesus Christ and the best of human nature.
Exactly two months ago, on Oct. 25, an Amarillo couple experienced sort of an early Christmas along Interstate-40, about 11 miles east of Clines Corners.
Carl and Carol Weiss were traveling to Santa Fe for a few days of recreation when, Carl said, the right front tire of the couple’s Ford Escape blew out.
They pulled off the highway.
Carl and Carol located the spare, the jack and the lug wrench, then Carl set out to do his husbandly duty with a routine tire change, which he’d done many times before.
Well, time takes its toll.
Carl, 87, found his knees would not tolerate any kneeling position, so he sat on the ground and loosened all but one of the lug nuts.
“I just didn’t have the strength for that last one,” he said.
Then, he learned that time had taken its toll in another way.
He couldn’t get up.
Just as despair was setting in, he said, “this couple pulled up behind us.”
The man approached.
“He said they saw what was going on and then came back to help,” Carl said.
“I told him I couldn’t get up,” Carl continued. “It took all his strength, but he pulled me up.”
Then, Carl said, the man finished mounting the spare tire.
The couple said they were from Tucumcari, but Carl didn’t get their names.
They followed Carl and Carol to Clines Corners, where they checked the Weiss’ tire pressure, which was fine.
“I offered to pay him, but he refused,” Carl said.
The man then offered to follow the Weisses to Santa Fe, even though the Tucumcari couple was on their way to visit grandchildren in Arizona.
Carl told the man he thought they’d be OK for the drive to Santa Fe, and the couples parted company, but Carl was moved by the kindness he’d experienced.
“It affected me so bad, I had tears in my eyes,” Carl said. “Even today, I get choked up thinking about it.”
Carl and Carol arrived in Santa Fe without any further trouble and enjoyed a few days of resort life.
Carl described the Tucumcari couple: “They were angels.”
To Carl, it affirmed a belief that “angels are all around us, looking after us.”
Carl already knew there were nice people in Tucumcari. He used to stop in at Tucumcari Municipal Airport to service navigation equipment when he worked for the Federal Aviation Administration.
Carl said he and Carol hope their rescuers feel an extra portion of warmth today.
I hope all the good people of Tucumcari enjoy their Christmas today, and have a great 2020.
Steve Hansen writes about our life and times from his perspective of a semi-retired Tucumcari journalist. Contact him at: