Glad my time is free.

By Jay Roeder

Hi everyone and welcome back! All is well on the home front and at my business, Roeder Performance Machine, and I have a short story to share before the ‘taters.

As you all know the mid term elections are finally over and the GOP has re-taken the rains. Hopefully, the conservatives that got in will get the country headed in the right direction again and do what we want so we don’t have to boot them back out! I was thinking lately about all the nastiness that goes with any election season and wondering why it always has to be that way.

I was also thinking my faith in the human population as a whole to do the “right thing” has been deteriorating over the years and you just don’t hear much anymore about people actually doing something nice anymore for someone they don’t know. You know what I mean? A “random act of kindness.” Then the other day I was in the drive up lane at the local McDonalds and when the person taking my order asked if I wanted to contribute a dollar to the Ronald McDonald House I thought about it and decided not to. I have given in the past but you hear so much about some “charities” that are nothing but scams (not saying this is one of them) and quite frankly I was in a bad mood. So I ordered my food from the dollar menu (I’m a cheap smack) and pulled forward to pay for it. I had my three bucks in hand and the lady said I didn’t have to pay for it! Huh?

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She said, “The car ahead of you paid for your order.”

“Yeah right!” I exclaimed. She said it again and I immediately looked forward to see who the now exiting good Samaritan was, figuring it HAD to be someone I knew. But, it wasn’t. It appeared to be a younger woman and she never even looked over or gave any hint of wanting any appreciation for her gift. I was simply stunned. By now I was holding up the line and I told the lady at the window that she could take my three bucks and give it to the charity.

I don’t know exactly what or why this happened but I know I had an amazing feeling of extreme humbleness on the way back to the shop and actually got a little emotional. I’m getting soft in my old age and it pisses me off! It just felt SO good knowing that after some of the crap I/we have been through the last couple of years in fact there is hope for mankind in this world, REAL hope, and that the simple act of paying for someone’s $3 meal could make such an impact on someone else’s attitude and then by paying it forward maybe help someone else who is truly in need.

A “random act of kindness” -- try it sometime, I bet you will see what I mean. Now, on to the ‘taters.

This month was going to be a continuation of last month with more body work but somehow along the way I got side tracked and tackled all sorts of other jobs. You know? The “little” jobs that never seem to quit popping up and end up taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r. Like the title says, glad my time is free! And, of course, I got some new goodies that I just had to play with so that’s how it went.

I got to thinking that before I got too serious about finish body work I should probably make sure I wasn’t going to be adding any more brackets or crawling in and out of the engine bay or interior a hundred more times. So I made a list. That was depressing. I don’t recommend it. Well, actually I do but it sure does put things in the proper perspective! I had a lot of things to do before worrying about body and paint work! I also need to get a bunch of stuff sent of to get powder coated and some of the items I needed to make yet were going to be in that pile.