I was camping with my daughter and son-in-law on the beautiful Somes Sound fjärd* in Acadia National Park in Maine. While the younger generation was still sleeping, I got up early to enjoy my favorite time of the day and walked down to the water. Sitting by the beautiful still water on the sea inlet, I noticed a couple drinking their morning coffee. “My kind of people,” I thought, and I struck up a conversation with them. They introduced themselves as Paul and Miriam Oppenheimer from Massachusetts.
Paul has visited this place since he was a child. His family used to live down the street from one of Nelson Rockefeller’s children, and when Paul was four years old, his family was invited to visit the Rockefeller family estate in Seal Harbor, Maine. Paul has loved this area ever since.
I joined them by the water and asked them if they had any inspiring stories. They told me a story about their honeymoon in 1988 in Mexico. Here is their heartwarming story:
Paul was beside himself. His new wife, of only a few weeks, was softly weeping as they ate at a restaurant/bar in a small working-class town in Mexico. It had been such a long day. They had begun their day with excitement and anticipation of the adventure that awaited them. They planned to take a bus across Mexico to the coast, a trip that required them to change buses several times. But all along the way, they were given bad directions. “You can catch the bus right over there,” they were told as the person would point in an obscure direction. They lost precious time chasing after bad advice and finally ended up getting off a bus in a town before their last connection, only to find the last bus had left for the night.
They wandered through town and stopped at every hotel they passed, asking to rent a room. Each place greeted them with rudeness and suspicion or simply ignored them. One woman quoted an exorbitant price and refused to show them the room until they paid her. They politely declined.
So, Paul decided to ask the police. They were not helpful, either. The police officer offered no solution and told them they would be arrested if they tried to stay in the park overnight.
So here they were eating dinner at a place that would close at midnight, then what? Paul had an idea. “Would you let us stay here and sleep on the floor for fifty dollars?” he asked the manager. Fifty dollars in 1988 was more than enough to stay in a fine hotel.
The waitress overheard their conversation and walked over to Miriam and Paul. “What do you think about coming home with me tonight? My children are grown, and I have plenty of space.”
Paul and Miriam quickly considered their options. Stay in the park and risk getting arrested? Wander the streets? Sleep on the hard floor of a stuffy bar that smelled like smoke and alcohol? Or go home with a complete stranger? But the stranger had a matronly presence and seemed sincere, so they decided to trust her.
“She had a beautiful home, and she treated us like royalty,” Miriam said. “She gave us good food, hot showers, and comfortable beds to sleep in. The next day, she took us to the bus to make sure we made the connection.”
“And she wouldn’t let us pay her a cent,” Paul said. “She kept saying she had a daughter, and this was in her honor.”
“I still think about her to this day,” Miriam said. “She is an angel God sent to us.”
*In case you think I made a typo, a fjärd is essentially a smaller version of a fjord.