THE HOME COMING

      

In the Spring of 1969, Canadian lawyer, Bob Hopkins who was a close friend of mine when he lived in Toronto, Canada invited me to visit him in British Honduras what later became the central American country of Belize.                                                                                                              

 knew that it would take me approximately two weeks to drive from Toronto and through the United States and Mexico before I arrived in Belize City where my friend and his family were residing.

         

The country is located on the north eastern coast of Central America. Belize is bordered on the northwest by Mexico, on the east by the Caribbean Sea, and on the south and west by Guatemala. It has an area of 22,970 square kilometres and a population of 408,487. Its mainland is about 180 miles long and 68 miles wide. It has the lowest population and population density in Central America.

         

Belize is not the safest destination for tourists visiting Central America, as it’s filled with petty and violent crimes, and most of it is centered in its capital, Belize City. When I was in that city, a police officer who accompanied me while I drove around the city told me that there was a part of the city in which even the police won’t venture into it.   The irony of my visit was that while I was in Mexico heading south to Belize, I gave an American hitchiker a ride to accompany me to Beleze. Until I had a meeting with the American ambassador to Belize, I didn’t know that the man I picked up was an American terrorist that the American police were looking for. However, this story isn’t about that hitchhiker. It was about a hitchhiker that I picked up in the US State of Oklahoma while driving south to Belize.                                                          

It was in the early afternoon after, I previously parked my car on the side of Highway when a tornado was approaching me a mile from me and the other motorists on the same highway. . It suddenly got dark.          

Twenty minutes later, it got light again and the tornado was moving away a mile or so. Twenty minutes later, I pulled into a gas station to get more gas in my tank.                                                           

A minute later, I was approached by a young man who had tears in his eyes. He asked me if I was driving to Fort Worth, Texas.                           

I told him that I was. He told me that he had spoken to his brother on the phone and that his brother told him that their mother was dying and told him that she and her family were in his home. I told the young man to get into my car.                                                                            

Two hours later, we were om the northern outskirts of Fort Worth.  He said that he would direct me to his home. As I drove through a red stop light, I could hear the siren of a police patrol car. He motioned me to pull over the curb. I did and he got out of his car and when he approached my car, he asked me, “Are you aware that you didn’t stop for a red signal light?”                                         

  Before I could respond, the stricken man sitting on my right leaned towards the driver’s window which I had lowered and he said to the officer, “This kind man is driving me to my home where brother has told me two ours ago  that our mother is dying in our home.”                      

The officer asked my passenger what his brother’s name was and what the phone number of his house was. After he got the information, he went back to his patrol car and a minute mater he returned to my car.                    

He said, “I have confirmed what you have old me and I have the address of your home. I want you to follow me and I will clear the way to your home. As he headed us to the home, we went through red lights and reached the home in fifteen minutes, My passenger’s brother was on the sidewalk of the home when we arrived. My passenger got out my car and reached into my car and thanked me profusely. He also tanked the patrol officer for his assistance, He told us that his mother was still alive.   


The officer then asked me where I was going. I gave him the address of the motel I was going to spend the night at. He told me to follow him and he would lead me to the motel which he did.                                  

I have picked up many hitchhikers in my fifty  years of driving cars.  but picking up the son  of a dying mother was the most satisfactory driving experience I have ever had.