Late Summer 1984, somewhere in Maine

I was in a campground in Maine, and I’d been there about a week.

It was raining constantly, and the bike was suffering some sort of electrical problem. The fairing, gas tank and side covers were all off and part of the wiring harness had been removed in my attempts to find the issue.

I had tarps out over the bike, and over my tent, and I’d pretty much ran out of food. I couldn’t build a fire, so the luxury of having anything warm to eat was out of the question. The best thing I could think to do was lay in my tent and read and listen to my stomach grumble. So that’s what I did. For days.

I’d been doing this for about a week or so, I had really lost track of time, and really wondering where I was going to get my next meal. There was a grocery store about 5 miles down the road, but the walk in the ceaseless rain seemed miserable. I was down to the one can of creamed corn that I keep in the trunk as last resort food.

I was dozing one afternoon when someone began rapping on my tent flap. Surprised, I opened the flap to see a middle aged woman standing there. She had her arms full of stuff. “Honey, we ain’t seen you cook anything or leave the campground all week. We figured you must be getting pretty hungry by now. We all took up a collection and here it is.” I was speechless. I was dumbfounded. I was grateful. We piled her loot under the tarp and without another word, she went away into one of the RVs parked across from me.

When I got into the stash, it had noodles, vegetables, rice, all sorts of ready-to-eat stuff. There was even half a home baked apple pie.

I stayed there for 2 more weeks, never saw her or anyone else again. They really saved me. I have lived my life with the expectation of paying it forward. Good comes of good, and that woman did a lot of good for me. I never even knew her name or which RV she came from. I was just grateful.