Looking after each other.

How many calls did you get on your CB the last time you were pulled over beside the road with your four-ways on? Did you call the last truck you saw pulled over? When was the last time you bought another trucker’s meal when you figured he was having a hard time? We’re all up against the same things out here.

We have to remember it’s up to us to look after each other. Kinda like Brian Platt.

A semi-retired, twenty year trucker, Brian Platt buys a trucker a hot meal, rescues another from a roadside breakdown, drives his nineteen eighty six pickup truck to get a trucker to the hospital or to town. And that’s just an ordinary list of good deeds for Platt.

Platt says he’s just passing on the help he got a long time ago.

Years ago, he and his wife were homeless and hitchhiking when Greencastle, Pennsylvania residents Barry and Ruth Keefer stopped and picked them up.

The Keefers gave the two young adults a place to live while they got jobs and turned their lives around.

Now Platt estimates he helps between ten to fifteen people each week and more than that during bad weather. He worries about the truckers who don’t make enough money, the ones living aboard their trucks and barely able to buy something to eat.

He doesn’t concern himself with the rare individual who takes advantage of him. He figures if he looks after the one person who really needs his help, then the occasional freeloader doesn’t matter.
What really counts is taking care of each other, Platt says.

So next time you find yourself in the position to help someone, what will you be doing?

Something to think about …