Karma

By Jason Frederick, SCAS President

Some people believe in Karma, some don't. Me, I have not made up my mind, but this story is making me consider it and I wanted to share it with you.

There is this group called Free-cycle that promotes a way to recycle unwanted items rather than have them end up in the city dump. The process is easy, just send out an email to the group offering an item or requesting an item, others contact you and you get rid of the item, no problem. There was an offer of three rabbit cages and I knew the Wildlife Care Center of Florida is always in need of cages and other items so, I made arrangements to pick them up.

I went to Canaveral Groves to pick them up and took the scenic route to the Wildlife Care Center to drop them off and brought my step-daughter Jennifer along to teach her about giving and being a volunteer. As I dropped them off, Jennifer and Paul thanked me and accepted 4 baby raccoons from the Animal Control officer that just pulled up. As I returned to my truck, I smelled what appeared to be something electrical burning. No smoke, no problem, right? Foreshadowing of what is to come.

I headed out past the dump to Highway 524 to get back home. When I stopped at the stop sign to make the turn, I see smoke pouring out from my front passenger side. As I pulled on to 524, I noticed that I also could not accelerate past 50 then 45 then 40. I pulled over to the side of the road and smoke is now erupting out of the passenger front tire. With no smoke extinguisher or water, I grabbed for the next best thing, Gatorade.

I cooled the tire down and began to panic. With it being 5:30PM I knew most shops were going to be closed. I took the risk and headed to US 1 and headed towards home. Gatto's Tires was the only shop open and with my step-daughter with me I had to stop for safety reasons. They could not get me in with the time being so late, so I left the truck and they check it out the next day. Kathy, my wife and Co-Vice President, called me to tell me it was going to be $1700. After I got off the floor, I told her to give them the ok to do the work. They threw in an oil change and when I picked it up, yet another problem. A part known as a tensioner that keeps tension on the fan belt, was in need of replacement and it he split the price of that and threw in labor for free.

I ask the questions now, if I did not pick up the cages for the Wildlife Care Center, I would not have had the car problems. Or, would the problems still have occurred and because I did a good deed for the Care Center, the people at Gatto's returned the gift to me? I am still unsure about Karma, but I will still do good deeds while hoping that Karma does exist.

Thank you to Gatto's in Cocoa for keeping my truck running which keeps the field trips going and everything else that I do in the name of Space Coast Audubon Society. Sometimes you just need someone else to do a nice thing for you in order to keep faith that there are still good people in this world and that when you do a good deed that it will be returned to you someday. Sometimes when you least expect it, but need it most.