Small town life bring benefits

Marion is the first and only small town in which I’ve resided (I was raised in Charleston). So there are still some things that strike me that I expect folks who have lived here all their lives take for granted. One is the connection that being in such a small community engenders.
I’ve had a couple experiences recently that reminded me of just how powerful the bond is between neighbors in small places like ours. The first was having my daughter Grace’s car broke down in front of Easterling Primary School. I called my mechanic, David Lee, whose number is in my contact list (Grace’s car is a 1993 Volvo station wagon so it pays to have a mechanic on speed dial) but he wasn’t home. As I was pondering my next move, Taylor Bass, one of Grace’s classmates who lives nearby rode up on his bike. He offered to bring his father by and a few minutes later he was under the hood. We couldn’t get it started, so I called another friend, Marty Jowers, to tow me to his shop. It was a pretty day, so we talked for a moment about our daughters, who are contemporaries.
This event caused me almost no anxiety; it was as close as possible to a stress-free breakdown. Every-one I saw that afternoon I knew and trusted. As soon as I raised the hood of the Volvo, I had a premoni-tion that someone would stop to help. David called me as soon as he received the message to make sure I had found some help. Marty diagnosed and treated the car so that it was ready to pick up the next afternoon.
There is an invisible thread that binds us together as residents of this county. Although we can’t always feel it, the tug becomes unmistakable when one of us is in trouble.
Last night, I felt the tug in the opposite direction. I was on my way home at about 6:30 in the evening. It was unpleasant, dark, and rainy. As I came down Pine Lake Road, I saw a small figure standing on the shoulder with no umbrella. Something just didn’t look right, so I circled back and pulled up beside her. The figure turned out to be a petite, young woman (I’ll call her Betty) who was confused and crying. She didn’t know where she was; she had been unceremoniously dropped off with only a backpack in hand.
“Can you help me, sir!?” she said plaintively through the open window as she stood in the middle of the road, wide-eyed. “Come and get out of the rain,” I told her as I opened the passenger door. Her story was disjointed and vague; it was not clear what I should do next. “I’m hungry,” she said with gusto. That gave us a direction. “Why don’t we get you something to eat?” We drove east on Liberty Street and I asked if she liked Burger King. In a childlike voice she responded, “No, I don’t like Burger King; I’m a Chinese food girl!”
We continued travelling on Liberty Street. “How about McDonald’s?” Betty gave me the same “sing-song” response. By this time her speech and affect made me concerned that she had schizophrenia. We continued eastward to the Marion County Medical Center Emergency Room. The triage nurse in the ER was marvelous. Betty was initially frightened but the nurse reassured her that she was in a safe place. In short order, she had discovered that Betty was indeed schizophrenic and had been homeless for the past two months.
I’ve been thinking about why I stopped for Betty. I almost never pick up hitchhikers. I’ve heard the stories of naïve drivers who stop to help someone pretending to be in distress only to be robbed or killed. And I think it boils down to that she was on my turf. She was barely a mile from my home. That thread that tugged on folks to surround me and my arthritic Volvo tugged back on me last night. I had to stop because she’s my neighbor.