Maureen - Manitoba Friendly Story

“It’s like 1991, so that's, how many years ago? 30 years ago! and this is like when I was 17 years old. My first job was working as a newspaper reporter for the Manitoba Beaver - legitimately the name of it - in Beausejour. I had to drive up to Pinawa to interview a young musician. So it's nighttime, I'm driving to Pinawa in the dark, I've never been there before, and I pull over on the side of the road. I can’t remember why - did I get lost? Did I need to check the map? I don’t remember. But I had to pull over on the side of the road, and I went too far off. So lo and behold here I am stuck on the side of the highway, way out in the dark, on the way to Pinawa some place, alone. This is the days before cell phones even existed, I’m like stuck on the side of the road in the dark, in the woods, alone, at the age of like 17, as a chick. So then here comes this car behind me, I’m like “ok so either somebody is going to stop and help me, or I'm going to die…’”
So they pull up behind me, and out comes this old guy. I don’t mean that disrespectfully, he was legitimately an ~old~ guy. This was so long ago that Pinawa was like home of the nuclear facility, so basically the only people who lived in Pinawa were like professors and atomic energy type scientists. So this guy was most likely a nuclear physicist, and he was like 80 years old. He legitimately, in his tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, pushed my car out of the ditch, back onto the road, took his pipe out of his pocket, lit it up, and got back into his car like he did this all the time.
I was like, thank you mister-whoever-you-are, for saving my life. This is like literally, I have not stopped thinking about this 85 year old guy who pushed my car out of this ditch, on a dark road, in Pinawa Manitoba, thirty years ago - because that was the best thing that had probably ever happened to me. It was amazing, like really. Whoever he was , I still thank him, to this day.”

-Maureen

Manitoba Friendly Story