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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I saw Jurassic World over the weekend and in some ways it was my favorite Jurassic Park movie yet, and I believe if you are learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a lesson I learned in the cold with an empty tank of gas.
Today’s Fun Fact of the Day: Here are some more fun facts about fireworks.
- The word for firework in Japanese, ‘hanabi’, which actually means “fire-flower.”
- The hardest color to create is blue, which is done with copper oxidizers. The temperature of the reaction has to be just right.
- Orange is the easiest color to create for fireworks. Up until the Middle Ages, fireworks were only orange and white, and now they come in a variety of colors.
- In order to make each color, different metals are used. We already know copper is used to make blue, but here are the other colors and their metals: Green (barium), Orange (calcium), Yellow (sodium), White (aluminum and titanium) and Red (lithium salts and strontium salt).
- If you gathered all the fireworks Americans will set off this week they’d weigh more than the Statue of Liberty, cost more than a Powerball jackpot, and release more energy than 100,000 bolts of lightning.
Here’s What I leaned yesterday.
The year was 1996. It was the middle of winter. I was a sophomore at the University of Central Oklahoma and working part time at a local bookstore. I was probably making around $7/hour. It was above minimum wage (which was $4.75), but still not a whole lot of money.
Like many college students down through the ages, I was a poor college student. Most of my meals involved noodles, and those noodles were often of the ramen variety. I’m not complaining. I loved my life. I enjoyed my job, I had a good roommate, I had an attractive girlfriend, and life was easy. It was simple.
However, I was living paycheck to paycheck. It was not uncommon for my car to be running on fumes by the time payday rolled around again. Fortunately, I never ran out of gas entirely…except for one colde winter night in 1996.
I knew that my tank was dangerously low. I knew I’d been pressing my luck. However, payday had arrived and I could finally afford to put some gas in my car. The nearest gas station was only ¾ of a mile away, most of it downhill. I was very nervous as I got into my car and was hoping that I had enough gas to get to the top of hill, a mere ¼ mile away from my starting point. (By the way, these measurements are exact. Thanks to Google Earth, I can look it up)
Unfortunately, I did not have enough gas to get me to the top of the hill. Just over 200 yards away from the top of the hill, my car sputtered, and died. It would not restart. The road I was on was a pretty busy road and my car was really in a bad spot. I couldn’t leave it there. I needed to get it to a side street. Of course, the nearest side street was at the top of the hill.
My car was a small two-seater 1984 Ford EXP. Although it wasn’t a big car, it was still a car. Pushing a car by yourself is no easy task. Pushing a car by yourself uphill is an even harder task. Pushing a car by yourself uphill while trying to also steer the car is an almost impossible task. Add on to that that it was dark and near freezing and you get an all around time of no fun in the least.
With my left hand on the driver’s side door frame and my right hand on the steering wheel, I dug in my feet and began pushing as hard as I could. Gravity’s hold began to loosen and the car slowly moved forward. I pushed and steered, pushed and steered and before long I had moved the car a good 20 or 30 feet.
And then I saw shadows.
Shadows could mean only one thing: a car was coming up behind me. I paused and looked behind me to make sure the car realized I was blocking part of the road. The car pulled beside me on the passenger side and the window rolled down. I very warm and able bodied looking man asked me if everything was okay. I told him that I had run out of gas and I was trying to get my car to the top of the hill and out of the way.
What happened next may surprise you. I know it surprised me.
He said, “Well, looks like you’re almost there. Good luck.” And then he drove off.
I couldn’t believe it. Who does that? Who stops to ask someone if they need help, learns that that person DOES need help, and then leaves them?
Here’s what I learned.
The rest of what happened that night is a blur. I know that I eventually got my car to the top of the hill. I know that I eventually got gas in the car. I know that I finally warmed up and I regained feeling in my fingers. However, I don’t remember any details of any of those things.
What I remember is the struggle. What I remember is the hope I felt when I saw headlights. What I remember is the despair and disappointment I felt when those headlights became taillights. What I remember is the feeling of being alone to face my problem.
What I’m sure of is that all of us face challenges in life. Sometimes our challenges are found on a cold street joined by nothing but a car with an empty gas tank. Sometimes our challenges are found when we discover a lump or a doctor speaks words that we never wanted to hear. Sometimes our challenges are found by breaking off a relationship, losing a job, or via the grip of an addictive substance.
No matter the way a challenge comes, it is a challenge. If we face that challenge alone, it can be a cold, excruciating, lonely, and numbing experience.
So there are two options: One, go it alone. Give it your best and push on to the top of the hill. However, the truth is, we can’t always make it to the top alone. So option two is to get help. Be brave enough to reach out for help. Be willing to share what got you to where you’re at and identify where you need to go. Be ready to put in the effort to get you to that destination.
But here’s the real lesson for today.
Don’t be a drive by problem solver. Don’t be that guy who acts like he is interested in helping and then drive off. Offering positive words was not what I needed that night. What I needed was someone to come out into the cold with me, get their hands dirty, lend me their strength, and help guide me to the top of the hill.
So let this story serve as a reminder to every single one of us that if we truly want to make the world a better place, we do that by impacting the lives of people in a positive way. We do that by not just saying words, but by rolling up our sleeves and showing action. There are people all around us that need a helping hand. They may reach the top of the mountain alone, but it will be a whole lot better if they have a friend for their journey.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
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