The Kindness of Strangers

I was in North Carolina driving back from the Cordele Nationals in 1985 pulling my Komet trailer with a mini motorhome. Tough to see the trailer behind us. A tricked-out, good-ole-boy van pulled up in the left lane and the passenger rolled the window down. I rolled my eyes and shouted "it's a glider!" but they started gesturing more frantically.

There was smoke pouring off both brakes. The front mount where the tongue inserts into the trailer had failed where it was welded to the steel tubing frame. The rear mount had held but the trailer had settled down, actuating the overrun brake.

They pulled off ahead of us and the driver walked back to help. He was pretty savvy about cars a mechanical things. He was late to dinner but he even took me to the local Walmart to pick up some wheel bearing grease. On the way back, I gave him the speech about gliders.

"Yeah," he said. "I got a ride in one a few weeks ago. I think it was called...a Grobee? I've got the pictures right here."

He had gone for a ride in a Grob two-seater at a nearby operation and liked it a lot. I repacked the wheel bearings, then lifted the trailer front end back up and chained the front of the tongue mount to the cross member. With someone standing at the rear door of the motor home watching the chained connection carefully, we limped on into my brother's in-laws' house an hour or so away that night. The next morning, a friend of theirs made a new front attachment by heating and bending a very large bolt into a U shape. Stronger than new.

And the driver of the van? He refused to accept anything that night so when I got home, I signed him up for an SSA membership and bought him a copy of "The Joy of Soaring". I don't whether he renewed or not but I had to do something. I figured having the magazine come in every month would remind him how grateful I was throughout the year.

This wasn't my idea. Another pilot had told me that's what he does. We're all ambassadors for our sport in this country and need to think about how we're perceived by others.

Chip Bearden
JB