I had just dropped my beloved off at the Marriott, she is helping her best friend run a table at the Oricon convention. I am heading for the Hawthorne Bridge with a radio show blaring. It is Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and I am laughing so hard I am almost in tears. My wife had left the window down just a little, and inch or two, the truck has a good heater, but if it had not been for that lowered window I would not have heard the plea in the center span on the south side of the Hawthorne bridge.

At a quick glance I saw what appeared to be a half naked old man waving his arms and yelling for help.I also saw that there wasn’t any one behind me so I stopped and backed up about 50 feet stopped and hit the flashers and got out. He is shivering violently and is half naked and I put him in my truck. Portland PD shows up and I explain the situation. The officer calls for an ambulance and we moved to the east side to clear the bridge. The ambulance shows up and we put the ol’ guy on the stretcher and the ol’ guy thanks everyone for saving his life. The ambulance said they were going to take him to Providence and off we went.

His name is Bobbie Gentry, he is 82 and lives on the street ‘cuz he only gets $350 per month social security after they deduct medicare. He had a camp near the bridge until these two gutter punks came, tore everything up and stole his wallet and his pants and boots. I asked him if he was a veteran and he said he was. So I made a call and when I left there was a VA rep with him filling out paper work to 1.) replace his ID, 2) get him into a room at a VA senior center, and 3) it seems that Bobbie is a disabled Veteran twice over. Once in Korea, and once in Vietnam. Has several medals also and whats more a pretty good pension coming that he didn’t even know about. The rep asked him how he survived on such a small pension.

Bobby grins an almost toothless smile, “He knows,” he says pointing at me, “ask him.”

“By faith in Christ,” I said.

Bobbie nods, and says “Yup.”

So I said my good byes. An Bobbie pulls me into his arms and whispers, “Thanks for saving me twice you’ll always be in my prayers and thoughts.”

I walk back to the truck weeping tears of joy. Not often one gets a hug from the Lord…….