Florida Adventure: Find a Need and Fill It

As I was leaving the condo area where Mr. Wonderful and I live in Florida, there was a car stopped. A 30-something, roly-poly, clean cut Hispanic man was standing next to the car holding a gas can. I offered him a ride to the nearest filling station about a mile away, waited for him to buy gas, drove him back to his car, and said I would wait until he had his car running. Little did he know I might have paid for a tow truck and repairs to the car if that was needed. I haven’t ever done such a thing but suddenly realized here was a need I would fill, no matter what the extent of the need. We often back off from helping because of a fear that more might be expected of us than we are willing to provide. I did not have that fear during this event.

Once we were back to his car, he set the gas can down, and came back to my car to thank me through the open window with his limited knowledge of English. He took my hand and kissed it, negating any need for a common spoken language. I realized I might do a lot of things for a man who kissed my hand. Once he had his car started, he came back to thank me again and kiss my hand again. Wow!

I remembered the phrase from the time I was coming of age that described such a feeling as I had, “Blow in my ear and I will follow you anywhere.” The young men of that era were hoping to have an opportunity to act out that promise.

Another phrase that came to mind was, “Find a Need and Fill It!” I thought, “That is a good phrase for the Christian ethic of helping one another,” although I first read it as the title of a paperback book I read in the early 1960s that was about success in business. I can’t find the book online. It may be out of print. But I do find online references to the concept. The book was filled with short stories that proved the validity of the motto.

For example, there was a story in the book about Ole Evinrude of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who founded the outboard motors company in 1907. Evinrude was courting a young woman and took her to an island. She expressed a desire for ice cream and Ole rowed to the mainland, bought ice cream, and rowed as fast as possible back to the island, worried the ice cream would melt. He thought there should be a quicker way to traverse that distance and invented the outboard motor.

I remember the book and that story but used my alternate brain, that goes by the name of Google, to get Ole’s name and the year he founded the company.

I have clear memories of my past, of things that have happened, stories I’ve been told, and books I have read. My memories are undoubtedly flawed as well as incomplete. At times I have discovered the truth of an event from the past and have noticed I remembered it differently. I can’t let the risk of inaccurate reporting keep me from writing. So, read my stories for the purpose for which they were written—information, inspiration, or entertainment— and don’t let the inaccuracies be a hindrance to our connection through this method of communication. I accept editing based on reality and adapt easily to such clarification.