Dave took the part and in five minutes backed out of the engine compartment. He turned to Judy, “I think we charged the battery enough with the jumpers. Could you start it?” He asked.

Judy nodded, got into the car and hit the starter. The engine cranked and came to life. Dave listened to it for a few moments, closed the hood and then waved to her. She turned off the engine and got out of the car.

“Thanks, how much do I owe you,” Judy asked.

“Nothing. Just call it a gesture of friendship.”

Bill looked over at Lynn and asked, “Isn’t my roomie the greatest?”

“Yes,” Lynn said with an obvious absence of enthusiasm.

“Let’s go over to Hardees. I can clean up in their restroom and we can get something to eat,” Dave motioned to his greasy hands.

In a few minutes they were in a booth at Hardees. Judy took the side with Bill. Lynn was positioned stiffly next to Dave.

“I’m glad you like my roomie,” Bill continued as if the conversation had not been interrupted. “It took me a while to get over my bigotry. I called him a Yankee for two months and for a while I even put the other word in to emphasize how I felt a few times. Then one day I told him his people killed my great-great uncle at Gettysburg. Later I found we had relatives who may have even faced each other across the breastworks on the first day and both of them died there, on the slopes of that same hill just west of the seminary. It made me hate him more. That was 65, 1865. When I went home from school one weekend and mentioned my roomie from Lancaster PA, grandpa told me about the invasion from Pennsylvania in 68, 1968 that is. I was too small to remember it. We had heavy rain and the river at Buena Vista rose more than 25 feet and flooded everything in sight. As the water was going down a group of Mennonites from a place called Lancaster, Pennsylvania came in to help. They weren’t asked to come. They weren’t getting paid. They just showed up as the water was going down. Initially some called it Yankee meddling. Before they left they had earned nothing but respect. It would have taken weeks, maybe months to clean up without them. It took a little over a week. They brought their own food and water and lived in their pickup trucks or tents. They even shared what they had brought for themselves with those who didn’t have to eat or safe water to drink. Grandpa learned some of them didn’t eat some meals or split meals so others would have food to eat. They didn’t ask for anything but work to do and gravitated to the dirtiest and hardest jobs. Nothing was too tough for them but they were the gentlest of people. Grandpa gave me the names of some he had gotten to know. Three of them were parents of children who went to high school with Dave. After that I started to give Dave an even break. He even turned out to be a decent guy.”