Thank you Virgie for this email.

Love,
Malcolm.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "VIRGIE UNDERWOOD" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 4:02 AM
Subject: Fw: the big wheel.


> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "rcuster" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>; <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 8:44 PM
> Subject: the big wheel.
>
>
> The Big Wheel
> In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and Just 
> 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged from three 
> months
> to seven years; their sister was two. Their dad had never been much more 
> than a presence they feared.
> Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would 
> scramble to hide under their beds.
> He did manage to leave $15 a week to buy groceries.
> Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no 
> food either.
> If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, 
> I certainly knew nothing about it. I scrubbed the kids until they looked 
> brand
> new and then put on my best homemade dress, loaded them into the rusty old 
> 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job.
> The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small 
> town. No luck.
> The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried 
> to convince whomever would listen that I was willing to learn or do 
> anything.
> I
> had to have a job.
> Still no luck. The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, 
> was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck 
> stop. It
> was called The Big Wheel.
> An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window 
> from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard 
> shift,
> 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour, and I 
> could start that night. I raced home and called the teenager down the 
> street that
> baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for 
> a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would 
> already
> be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal.
> That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers, we all 
> thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at The Big Wheel.
> When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her 
> home with one dollar of my tip money--fully half of what I averaged every 
> night.
> As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my meager wage.
> The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began 
> to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every 
> morning
> before I could go home.
> One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found 
> four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing, 
> just those
> beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up residence in Indiana I 
> wondered.
> I made a deal with the local service station. In exchange for his mounting 
> the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot 
> longer
> to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.
> I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough. 
> Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the 
> kids.
> I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old 
> toys. Then hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa 
> to deliver
> on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on 
> top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to 
> repair.
> On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in The Big 
> Wheel. These were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper 
> named Joe.
> A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were 
> dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around 
> and talked
> through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the 
> sun came up.
> When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning, 
> to my amazement, my old battered Chevy was filled full to the top with 
> boxes
> of
> all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the driver's side door, crawled 
> inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat.
> Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was whole case 
> of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full 
> of
> shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes. 
> There was candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an 
> enormous
> ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and 
> Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was a whole bag of 
> laundry supplies
> and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful 
> little doll.
> As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most 
> amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will 
> never
> forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning.
> Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all 
> hung out at The Big Wheel truck stop....
> THE POWER OF PRAYER. I believe that God only gives three answers to 
> prayer:
> 1. "Yes!"
> 2. "Not yet."
> 3. "I have something better in mind."
> God still sits on the throne, the devil is a liar. You maybe going through 
> a tough time right now but God is getting ready to bless you in a way that 
> you
> cannot imagine.
> My instructions were to pick four people that I wanted God to bless, and I 
> picked you.
> Please pass this to at least four people you want to be blessed and a copy 
> back to me.
> This prayer is powerful, and prayer is one of the best gifts we receive. 
> There is no cost but a lot of rewards. Let's continue to pray for one 
> another.
> Here is the prayer:....
> Father, I ask You to bless my friends, relatives and email buddies reading 
> this right now. Show them a new revelation of Your love and power. Amen.
>
>
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