It's six a.m. and I should be moving to go to work but I must tell you about an adventure I had last night.
I went to the Sheboygan County Jail to attend one of my twice-monthly AA meetings. On the way in, there were two Latino women sitting in the external area where you have to wait to be let into the lobby.
When we came out after the meeting, they were still there. We asked if they needed a ride somewhere and found that they could speak no English at all. All we could make out was "taxi" and "Milwaukee".
My friend, Tim, thought he had a tennant who could translate. He was not able to get her on the cell phone.
I remembered my old colleague, Chuck, a retired Spanish teacher whom I worked with for 27 years. I called Liz and she looked up Chuck's number in the phone book. I called Chuck and asked if he would translate. I told Chuck that I would take them to Milwaukee if I could find someone to go along. I was a little leery about going alone with two people I did not know. Eventually, I decided that I was not likely to find someone to ride along so I decided to do it alone.
The two ladies got into my car and we started down for Milwaukee. I called Chuck again, to ask him to try and find out an address where I needed to take them. One of the ladies produced a business card from La Esmeralda, a restaurant at 1801 S. 11th Street. I don't know Milwaukee but I trusted that the ladies would tell me which exit to take and point directions to turn.
As we got to Grafton, it began to snow. The snow got heavier as we entered Milwaukee county and I had to slow down considerably. We approached the Highrise bridge and crossed it. I expected that this place was somewhere on the near south side but have no experience with that part of town. By the time I asked about which exit to take, all I could get was "Mitchel" out of the ladies. By that time, I was past any exit that got me close to Mitchel Street. I ended up getting off at Holt and heading what I thought was north. Actually, I was going west on a city street. But I did cross 11th street and asked if I should go back to that street and the lady said "yes". I begun to go north on 11th, a narrow, car-filled street. The snow was coming down hard and I had to stop at every cross street. I could not read the numbers on the houses so I did not know if I was going the right direction. Eventually, just after I crossed Oklahoma, I asked the lady if I should turn around and go the other direction and she said yes. Just as we reached a dead end in 11th street, my son called. I had called him on the way down and asked if he was near his computer. At that time, he was not and he said he did not know where this restaurant was. As we turned around on 11th street, he called back and began to lead me in the right direction. As we got back to Oklahoma, I went two blocks left and hit 13th street, a major artery. Geoff named the streets I was crossing and in a short time, we were at the restaurant.
The ladies gave me two 50 dollar bills and I tried to give one back but she would not hear of it. They expressed their gratitude and I left for home.
I arrived home at about 11 p.m. knowing I had been given the rare privilege of being able to do something entirely selfless for other human beings. It feels so good to know that even though we could not communicate via language they understood that my only motive was to help them.

Gotta get to work.

Ciao, babies!