A few years back my 2 sons (age 10 and 21) and I were going shrimping at Oak Hill FL. The tide was to be going out around 12 o'clock so we planed on launching around 10:30. While traveling down US1 between Titusville and Oak Hill I lost a wheel on my boat trailer. Those who know that stretch of highway know there isn't much traffic after 10:00. The first car to come by was 3 black guys towing an old aluminum boat behind a beat up stationwagon. I got out of the truck and locked the doors and went over to talk to the good Samaritans who had stooped to help. The older black guy introduced his two sons and said they too were going shrimping. He looked at my trailer and said if we could find the wheel he could fix it. I went back to the truck and told my boys we had help. My youngest son told me he was scared and that we would surly be robbed and beat up. I told him not to worry about it because these were good people. We walked into the woods and found the wheel. When we got back to the boat I asked the old man how he was going to fix it since we didn't have a wheel bearing and there were no auto parts stores open. He said there was a junk yard down the road and he knew the owner. I told the boys that I was going with the old man to get a bearing and they could stay with his two sons. My youngest repeated his concerns saying these guy were out to rob us. I explained to him that all black guys in beat up cars aren't bad and these happened to be good people. <br /> The old man and I went to the junk yard and ended up having to break in, which scared the daylights out of me but he insisted he knew the owner. We found an old rusty bearing off an old lawn trailer that almost matched my wheel bearing. We went back to the boat and the old man fixed my trailer. He told me that should get me home and he would follow us. I gave him $50 bucks which was all I had on me at the time. He said I didn't have to do that but I insisted. As we drove towards home I lectured my youngest boy on how he mis judged these guys because they were poor black people, but he was wrong, they were good people just like I had said. A couple of miles down the road the wheel once again fell off. The old man said if he could borrow my tool box he would go get the bearing off the other side of the trailer we had found earlier. I gave him my tool box with about $500 worth of tools and he took off for the junk yard. <br /> By now it was after midnight and my son said the old man would probably run off with my tools. I insisted he was wrong that these were good people. 8 hours later we were still sitting by the side of the road and I had to call a friend for help. I would love to give the old man and his sons the benefit of the doubt but I guess I was wrong. These were not good people.<br /> My only regret was the lesson I tried to teach my son was blown all to hell. I did explain that maybe the lure of my $500 tool box was just too much for them and we could have just as easily been robbed by a couple of white guys. Maybe the lesson we both learned was that his old man tends to trust people too much.
