To the Editor:
My name is Ruka and I live in Reston now! I have been wanting to send this letter since a long time ago, and if you can print this letter in all the Connection papers in Northern Virginia, I truly, truly appreciate and thank you from my heart.
Back in February, the night before Super Bowl, I was driving on Beulah Road coming from Giant on Maple Avenue (in Vienna) after a big grocery shopping. Right before the intersection where Beulah, Trap Road and Old Courthouse Road meet, my front left tire flattened (yes, busted). I was feeling the front of my car being low, and when it blasted with that sound of explosion, I gasped and was a little panicked. (Yes, always hoping this would never happen before it really happened.) All I could do was turn on the emergency light and I pulled my car to the side of the road (thank goodness there was a space to do so). I tried to call my friend who lives in Vienna just a few minutes from the site, but perhaps from a despair and panic I didn’t seem to manage myself to locate my friend’s number, which is the easiest to find of all. It was around 8 p.m. at night, pitch dark, cold … just lucky it was not snowing. Many things went in my mind and all I had left was sadness, and within several seconds, a man driving beside me pulled down the window and asked, “What happened?”
I said, “I have a flat tire.”
He saw me trying to contact someone, perhaps being a little jittery. He gently came out of his car and went over to see the left front of my car.
He goes, “Do you have the tools to repair a flat tire?”
Completely embarrassed and with the total submission of my incompetence, I opened the trunk and showed what I had: a small spare tire and a tool that I can’t pronounce. Needless to say, it was a cold night, and my trunk was retaining water (from snow mostly), because the cover of the trunk wasn’t lit. (I didn’t know about the water until the next morning.) The man gently picked up the tire and the tool and started to change the flattened tire. He asked me to direct oncoming cars to pass by us smoothly, because he needed to work at the front-left of my car where cars passed by him very closely.
I was swinging a small flash light to direct oncoming cars to pass us by, standing over where he was working, praying things go well. In seven or eight minutes, the man was finished changing to a small, temporary tire and said to me, “This should be okay for a little while, just drive very slowly.”
I didn’t know what phrase or words would be appropriate to thank him, and I said, “Could you write your name and address or phone number?” extending a manila envelope I happened to have that time. The man, who’d rather go home quickly and had said goodbye to me already, wrote down and handed the envelope back. He was kind enough to follow me down on Beulah until I made a turn on Lozano Drive. I tried waving him for “thank you,” but I don’t know if he could see.
Later, I pulled out the envelope I had asked the man to write his name, address … to find only “Mike Knoeckel.” Mr. Knoeckel, I’m sorry it has taken four months, but I thank you so much for everything you did and directed me the night before the Super Bowl … yes, I was rooting for the “Broncos.” I had never watched a football game before, but this February I did and was cheering for Colorado, and I’m sure they’ll come back.
Ruka Kato
Reston