“No good deed goes unpunished” was the given topic sentence for the five-paragraph essay I had to write for a standardized test when I was a high school senior applying to colleges. It was a sentiment familiar enough to me even at that tender age, and it might have been my glowering, sulking conviction this past Friday evening if it were not for yet another overwhelming example of good being victorious over evil, and God’s providence being revealed in human weakness.
It was a dark and stormy night, as the cliché goes, and I had gone way up-county to visit a parishioner in the hospital. The same rain that would give us a sodden Saturday for First Holy Communion had already been coming down since Thursday at least, and it was cold enough that even the May flowers were finding no joy in it. As I rolled toward home at a leisurely pace down Olney-Sandy Spring Road, my left front wheel found the Pothole from Hell hiding under one of the shining puddles. I shouted with dismay at the tooth-rattling impact, and my friend, Father Mark Knestout, with whom I had just started a phone call, asked “What was that?”
Pulling over a few hundred feet later onto what I thought was a large driveway but turned out to be a small road coming out of the dark woods, as soon as I opened the door I heard the air not hissing, but rather gushing out of my tire. I signed off the call, and began the arduous process of excavating my spare tire, jack, and lug wrench. Everything was buried beneath the many reusable grocery bags, tools, and other gear I keep in the boot of my car. There were no streetlights at all, but I had an LED headlight I could strap on that must have made me look like some bizarre cyclops in a fedora and trench coat.
The last time I had changed a tire was on my family’s Oldsmobile station wagon, I think. My lack of practice slowed my progress, as did the exquisite cleverness and efficiency of the German-engineered equipment. At one point I despaired of getting the lugs loosened with the diminutive wrench, and called for help from a friend who promised to bring more tools, but was a half-hour away at the parish. It was a miserable night to be on the side of the road wrestling with uncooperative hardware as indifferent motorists splashed past along the road.
Persevering, I managed to remove the lugs and the injured tire, and as I attempted to line up the holes of the “donut” spare tire with the holes of the hub, and thread through the lug, I thought to myself, “You know, I could really use another hand just now.” At that very moment, from behind me on the road came a voice, “Do you need some help?” As I turned around to reply came the exclamation, “Oh my gosh, it’s Monsignor!”
My next-door neighbors, Dan and Beth Anne O’Donoghue were on their way home from Good Counsel High School with their son Daniel. They immediately pulled their car behind mine and leapt to assist me, holding flashlights, heaving tires, and most importantly, cheering me enormously. Shortly after their arrival, reflected in the windows of my car I saw blue lights, and heard Beth Anne say, “Hello, Officer.” When I heard his response, I thought – I know that voice. I stood up to find it was Mike McNally, whose daughter Nora would receive her First Holy Communion here the next morning. Yes, I know he is a professional helper of people in circumstances like mine, but how welcome it was that he was somebody I know.
And it certainly was not “his job” to follow me down the worst stretch of that dark and narrow road once I got rolling, to make sure everything held together; but he did. Mike went back to his beat just before I crossed paths with my buddy who had driven up from the parish with tools, who then wheeled around and followed me the rest of the way home. When I told him how things had unfolded, he laughed and laughed, as did I.
Now, it might not be right to conclude that the only helpful people in Olney are from Silver Spring; and perhaps it is a reach to assert that Saint Bernadette parishioners are the most generous on the roads of Montgomery County; but neither was there any evidence to the contrary this weekend. What I can assert is that an event that could have left me muttering and cursing about good deeds getting punished instead left me laughing and rejoicing. Sure, I was soggy and my clothes were soiled; yes, I would have to spring for a new tire (but not a new wheel!) and alignment. But how could I fail to be grateful and glad? How good it is when our God draws good out evil, and how delightful when our own friends reveal themselves to be His cooperators in so doing.
