May 1, 2024 • 19 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Thomas Weller, also known as 'The San Diego Highwayman,' shares the story of why he dedicated his time to helping people on the side of the road.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Up next, we
have the voice of Thomas Weller, aka the San Diego Highwayman.
Thomas is nationally recognized for doing something he simply calls
playing on the freeway, but what he does is truly
much more. Here's Thomas with a story of why he
(00:30):
decided he would dedicate much of his life to helping people,
specifically stranded motorists on the side of the road.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well, here's nineteen sixty four and hours out against my
mother's Roysterers, tomcatting around in a snowstorm one night and
I'm coming home about one two o'clock in the morning.
It was a blizzard, and it was a two lane highway,
and I was blown off the road into a snowbank
(01:08):
and my fifty eight Chevy X police car and the
top was white and the back end bottom was black.
That's all he could see the car was the black
trunk sticking out of the snowbank. And I'd been there
for a number of hours, and I was freezing cold,
and a fellow in a pickup came along, only person
(01:30):
that came by that night, and he stopped and he
pulled me out with a chain and I said thank you,
and I tried to pay him. He wouldn't take any money.
What he said was passion on when you have a chance.
I never even got his name. I didn't really understand
(01:56):
that he'd probably saved my life until about two years later,
nineteen sixty six. That's when I started doing what I
do and have done ever since. Charles Carralt called me
the highwayman on National TV in nineteen ninety six. He said,
(02:17):
highwayman of old or figures to fear, but here's a
highwayman to admire. And I thought that was pretty cool.
My somen was sitting there watching it with me on
TV and he turned to me to Dad, isn't a
highwayman a bad thing? Anyway? Ever since then, I've been
(02:42):
the San Diego Highwayman. In nineteen sixty four, I read
a book by Rick Raphael called Code three, and it
predicted the future of gigantic cross country highways, transcontinental highways,
(03:02):
and vehicles that were jet powered. And the story was
about this one officer's Beua, which was their vehicle that
was shut up as a wrecker and patrol car. It
had crane on it for lifting vehicles. It had a
jail show in the nose and there was a picture
(03:22):
of it on the front page of the book, and
it just enthralled me as a teenager. And I named
my rescue rig BUA from that. And my BUA was
a fifty five, fifty fifty seven, fifty eight, fifty nine.
It was parts of a dozen different cars. I found
(03:45):
it initially and a vacant lot wrecked gave thirty five
dollars for it, and I paid fifty dollars for the
front end off of fifty six. Bula was a fifty
five sheep, but the fifty six front end fit on
just perfect, So for under one hundred dollars, I had
me a running car.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
This would be the car that Thomas would go on
to rescue thousands of people with.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I had a full toolkit it grew over the years.
I had basic emergency services stuff. I had my first
response kit because my wife and I took MT courses.
I had gasoline, I had oil, I had air compressed
air for tires. I had several different kinds of jacks,
(04:33):
pie bars, cutting tools. She weighed fifty six hundred pounds
with the dog Sheila were sitting in the seat when
it got weighed.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Sheila was Thomas's lab also known as his shotgun rider,
who went on every one of his adventures with him.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I looked all over Sandyego County. When I found her,
I knew it was to be. She was in the
last cage, the last place I looked, and she was
in the back of the cage, and the person took
me to see her. She'd only been just brought in.
I looked at her, and I already had the name
(05:13):
picked out from the Crocodile Dundee movie. Well, I said, Sheila,
would you like to come home with me? And she
got up, came out to the wine and put her
nose through and anyway, two weeks later, after she'd been
through all the processes and gotten fixed and everything, I
(05:35):
came to get her and she jumped into the rig
on the passenger shine, crashed over the driver's shine and
sat down the driver's sheet, put her front paws on
the showing roll and looked over at me like, Okay,
I'm ready, get in. Let's go. And I said, Sida,
you can't drive the vehicle or She put her head
(05:56):
down and her tail went down. She crossed over the
passioner seat, sat down waited for me, and then I
came around and put the harness on her as a
safety harness to protect them if there was ever a crash.
She lifted her paws one by one in the front
and she did that every time.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
One fourth of July weekend, Thomas was out playing on
the freeway and spotted a family in need.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
They were stranded at the stop right there, and I
stopped to help them, and they were driving a mid
engine mister van with the alternator gone bad on and
the battery was dead, and that's why they died right there.
So I put my jumper battery in and I carry
with me for these things, and I followed them to
(06:52):
their motel up in Kearnye Masha, where I left the
jumper battery in disconnected and showed him how to reconnect it.
And the next morning they came out with their van
to my place in Alcohol and I reinstalled their battery
which i'd charged from overnight, and I gave them a
battery so they can make it home to San Jose
(07:16):
running just on the battery, and I warned him not
to use their lights or signals or air conditioning. And
they made it. And the thing was this particular vehicle.
It's hard to work on, and it was the fourth
of July weekend and it would just totally ruin their
weekend if they'd had to take it somewhere and try
to get it fixed down here. So the little girl
(07:39):
drew for me. They sent me that, and it's up
on my garage wall, and she even put my dog
in the driver's sheet of my bula. And it's my
most favorite thank you of all the years that I've
done this.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Thomas had a card of his own that he would
give to people after helping them.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
It says, assisting you it had been my pleasure. I
asked for no payment other than for you to pass
on a favor by helping someone in distress that you encounter.
And on the backshiter card it's the words from Country
Western Shaw. It says, you don't owe me a thing.
(08:24):
I've been there too, someone once helped me out. Just
to why I'm helping you. If you really want to
pay me back, here's what you do. Don't let the
chain of love end with you.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And you've been listening to Thomas Weller, the San Diego Highwayman,
telling his story which really started fundamentally in a snow
bank where his car was trapped, and well, there was
no one in sight until one person came by. As
he put it, Thomas, a fellow and a pickup came
by and pulled me out with a He wouldn't take money.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
I never got his name. Pass it on if you
get a chance, is all he said.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
And my goodness, Thomas has been passing it on, and
he has had many chances.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
A highwayman, to admirer.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Charles Carrow called him in nineteen ninety six. Generally highwaymen
are feared, not this one. And we learned about Beulah,
his precious car, which he cobbled together from many different
cars for under one hundred bucks. But as he put it,
for under one hundred dollars, I had a running car
weighing in at five six hundred pounds, with his tools
(09:36):
and his dog Sheila. When we come back more of
Thomas Weller's story, a classic American story here on our
American stories. Oh, and we returned to our American stories
(10:12):
and to Thomas Weller, the San Diego highwayman who spent
much of his life helping motors who were stranded on
the side of the road.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
I was shout by one sixty three and there was
a ninety tea bird on the right shoulder with a
blown tire, and the fellow driving it was a fellon
a jailbird. He was wearing a wife beater shirt and
he had the tear drop tattoos. And just as I
pulled up, his friend pulled up with two sparrow donuts
(10:49):
that they were going to try on the car, and
neither one of them fit. So I gave the guy
my card and I told him I be back with
one that fit. And I drove home here to the
ranch and I picked out one that I knew would fit,
took it back to him, and when I arrived, his
friend had left. He was sitting in the car reading
(11:10):
my card, holding his hand. He didn't believe I was
coming back. He thought he was totally shrewd. He was
down from LA to pick up a friend who was
getting out of jail. I put the spear on and
it worked, and shook hands with him. And this was
a really scary looking guy, and I was kind of
concerned for my safety with him. I turned to leave,
(11:33):
and all of a sudden, he had his hand on
my shoulder and he spun me around, and I was thinking, oh, well,
the guy was crying and he said nobody had ever
done anything for him before in his life. And he
said I just changed his life, and it tears me
(11:58):
up now to tell you about it. He broke down
a cried, this big, scary looking dude. I've had a
number of fellas and gals cry as I'm helping them.
They're the little gal who I helped on the one
sixty three. She was talking to trip Away on the
phone when I pulled up, and she told the Triple
(12:20):
A people, well, the Ghostbuster's card just pulled up behind me.
She was initially scared of me and told me no,
she didn't want to help and want me to leave,
but I want her over and I changed the tower
for her and sent her on her way, and she
sent me a real nice little email saying that she
(12:42):
was the redhead that I'd helped that day, and the
reason she was so scared of me was that she
knew I wasn't trip Away because she was on the
phone to trip Away as I pulled up, and one
of her best friends had been Karen not It's a
long and really sad story about Kara, but this CHP
(13:06):
offer Craig Payer killed Kara or not and attempted to
get away with it, so she was not convinced at
all initially that I was there to help her, and
it goes uphill from there. We still correspond via email
every so often. I had one fellow I help his wife.
(13:29):
She had a bone and shredded tire and a damaged
fender by and he arrived as I was finishing up,
and he tried.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
To pay me.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
This was an expensive vehicle that had the bone tire
and he was driving an expensive vehicle. Well, I wouldn't
take his money, but I lost my sunglasses that day,
and either said something about her. He noticed I didn't
have any. He took off his dispenser sunglasses and gave
them to me, and I did accept those because the
(13:57):
sun was pretty bright. There were a number of hp
aushers through the years who assisted me at scenes as
I assisted them as well, but one particular offsher offsher
cami a little blonde. The first time I met her,
(14:18):
I was on the right shoulder with a young girl
in a Mustang that was broken down, and offsher cami
pulled up and walked up to me and said, let
me see your business license.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
And I didn't know her name.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Then I said, officer, I don't have a business license,
but I do have this, and I gave him my
card and she read the card and her demeanor changed,
and she gave me a hug. And from that day
till the last time I shower, we were good. French.
She I would go out to play, as I called it,
(14:55):
when I was despondent or depressed, because every time I
helped somebody it would raise my spirits. Well, this one night,
I'd gone out to play in a couple hours and
I hadn't found a single person to help. So I'm
headed home and all of a sudden, I get lit
up and pulled over by a HB. And I'm thinking,
(15:16):
that's just great, perfect ending for a perfect day, and
now I'm going to get a ticket and I don't
know for what. Well, the ofusher walks up to my
window and six it's hand in the window and shakes
my hand and he said, for the seventeen years he's
been on the East County beat, he's seen me at
actions and breakdowns and other things doing what I do,
(15:37):
and never had a chance to say thank you because
I always took off so fast. I said, you pulled
me over to say thank you. Yep, he sure did,
and that lifts in my spirits considerably. I haven't ever
had a problem asking for help to help others with,
(16:01):
like when my car broke down or the engine blew up,
or I needed a part or spare tires for folks.
I didn't have any trouble asking for others when I
needed stuff for them. But it's difficult asking for me.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
So some of the people who Thomas had helped and
others who'd heard of the work he was doing, took
it upon themselves to help him back. They came together
to raise money for Thomas to get a set of teeth.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
And I'm gonna cry because I do have teeth now,
thanks to like eleven hundred people, some of whom I
had helped and some I never knew and never will know.
And I have my teeth, and I can eat, and
I've gained a little bit of weight back.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Thomas played on the freeway for fifty one years and
helped over ten thousand people on the side of the road.
In twenty seventeen, Thomas had a stroke that partially disabled him,
preventing him from playing on the freeway any longer.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I'm recovered from cancer two months ago. Luckily they got
it all. I'm real happy to still be here. Folks
are sent me emails and letters, and a couple of
folks who posted stories on the Internet about their experiences
with me and what it meant to them and the
(17:30):
things that they'd done in return. There's just so many
of them. I got stories to fill several books, but
a lot of them are just in my memory and
my one foot stack high. Letters and emails and pictures
in touch, but they're all in my memory. I've had
(17:51):
numerous experiences that convinced me that there are angels out there,
and I've been called an angel any time in my
own shelf. I just realized that I might not have
been here if it hadn't been for that one fell
a help in me. And there's been a number of
people Shench who have a spowers similar feelings for what
(18:15):
I did for them.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
And a terrific job on the production by Madison Derrikut
and a special thanks to Thomas Weller, the San Diego Highwayman.
Fifty one years, ten thousand people helped ten thousand stories
in the end, and he shared some of them with us.
That nineties te bird that was blown out, a blown
out tire, that is, and an ex fellon who was
driving it, and he was driving to pick up another
(18:40):
ex con coming out of jail, and the guy looked tough,
and he had to leave that ex con stranded, go
back at a tire and then come back to him.
And when he was leaving after having fixed the problem,
he felt a hand on the shoulder. When he turned around,
he was a little afraid, and then he saw he
had nothing to fear at all, because that x con
was crying.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
No one had ever done something for me. That man said.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
He even got pulled over by a cop who wanted
to just thank him. And how often does that happen
in any of our lives, that we get pulled over
by law enforcement just to say thank you. Numerous experiences
in my life tell me that there are angels out there.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Well, Thomas Weller is one of them.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
The story of Thomas Weller here on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. Up next, we
have the voice of Thomas Weller, aka the San Diego Highwayman.
Thomas is nationally recognized for doing something he simply calls
playing on the freeway, but what he does is truly
much more. Here's Thomas with a story of why he
(00:30):
decided he would dedicate much of his life to helping people,
specifically stranded motorists on the side of the road.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well, here's nineteen sixty four and hours out against my
mother's Roysterers, tomcatting around in a snowstorm one night and
I'm coming home about one two o'clock in the morning.
It was a blizzard, and it was a two lane highway,
and I was blown off the road into a snowbank
(01:08):
and my fifty eight Chevy X police car and the
top was white and the back end bottom was black.
That's all he could see the car was the black
trunk sticking out of the snowbank. And I'd been there
for a number of hours, and I was freezing cold,
and a fellow in a pickup came along, only person
(01:30):
that came by that night, and he stopped and he
pulled me out with a chain and I said thank you,
and I tried to pay him. He wouldn't take any money.
What he said was passion on when you have a chance.
I never even got his name. I didn't really understand
(01:56):
that he'd probably saved my life until about two years later,
nineteen sixty six. That's when I started doing what I
do and have done ever since. Charles Carralt called me
the highwayman on National TV in nineteen ninety six. He said,
(02:17):
highwayman of old or figures to fear, but here's a
highwayman to admire. And I thought that was pretty cool.
My somen was sitting there watching it with me on
TV and he turned to me to Dad, isn't a
highwayman a bad thing? Anyway? Ever since then, I've been
(02:42):
the San Diego Highwayman. In nineteen sixty four, I read
a book by Rick Raphael called Code three, and it
predicted the future of gigantic cross country highways, transcontinental highways,
(03:02):
and vehicles that were jet powered. And the story was
about this one officer's Beua, which was their vehicle that
was shut up as a wrecker and patrol car. It
had crane on it for lifting vehicles. It had a
jail show in the nose and there was a picture
(03:22):
of it on the front page of the book, and
it just enthralled me as a teenager. And I named
my rescue rig BUA from that. And my BUA was
a fifty five, fifty fifty seven, fifty eight, fifty nine.
It was parts of a dozen different cars. I found
(03:45):
it initially and a vacant lot wrecked gave thirty five
dollars for it, and I paid fifty dollars for the
front end off of fifty six. Bula was a fifty
five sheep, but the fifty six front end fit on
just perfect, So for under one hundred dollars, I had
me a running car.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
This would be the car that Thomas would go on
to rescue thousands of people with.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I had a full toolkit it grew over the years.
I had basic emergency services stuff. I had my first
response kit because my wife and I took MT courses.
I had gasoline, I had oil, I had air compressed
air for tires. I had several different kinds of jacks,
(04:33):
pie bars, cutting tools. She weighed fifty six hundred pounds
with the dog Sheila were sitting in the seat when
it got weighed.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Sheila was Thomas's lab also known as his shotgun rider,
who went on every one of his adventures with him.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I looked all over Sandyego County. When I found her,
I knew it was to be. She was in the
last cage, the last place I looked, and she was
in the back of the cage, and the person took
me to see her. She'd only been just brought in.
I looked at her, and I already had the name
(05:13):
picked out from the Crocodile Dundee movie. Well, I said, Sheila,
would you like to come home with me? And she
got up, came out to the wine and put her
nose through and anyway, two weeks later, after she'd been
through all the processes and gotten fixed and everything, I
(05:35):
came to get her and she jumped into the rig
on the passenger shine, crashed over the driver's shine and
sat down the driver's sheet, put her front paws on
the showing roll and looked over at me like, Okay,
I'm ready, get in. Let's go. And I said, Sida,
you can't drive the vehicle or She put her head
(05:56):
down and her tail went down. She crossed over the
passioner seat, sat down waited for me, and then I
came around and put the harness on her as a
safety harness to protect them if there was ever a crash.
She lifted her paws one by one in the front
and she did that every time.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
One fourth of July weekend, Thomas was out playing on
the freeway and spotted a family in need.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
They were stranded at the stop right there, and I
stopped to help them, and they were driving a mid
engine mister van with the alternator gone bad on and
the battery was dead, and that's why they died right there.
So I put my jumper battery in and I carry
with me for these things, and I followed them to
(06:52):
their motel up in Kearnye Masha, where I left the
jumper battery in disconnected and showed him how to reconnect it.
And the next morning they came out with their van
to my place in Alcohol and I reinstalled their battery
which i'd charged from overnight, and I gave them a
battery so they can make it home to San Jose
(07:16):
running just on the battery, and I warned him not
to use their lights or signals or air conditioning. And
they made it. And the thing was this particular vehicle.
It's hard to work on, and it was the fourth
of July weekend and it would just totally ruin their
weekend if they'd had to take it somewhere and try
to get it fixed down here. So the little girl
(07:39):
drew for me. They sent me that, and it's up
on my garage wall, and she even put my dog
in the driver's sheet of my bula. And it's my
most favorite thank you of all the years that I've
done this.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Thomas had a card of his own that he would
give to people after helping them.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
It says, assisting you it had been my pleasure. I
asked for no payment other than for you to pass
on a favor by helping someone in distress that you encounter.
And on the backshiter card it's the words from Country
Western Shaw. It says, you don't owe me a thing.
(08:24):
I've been there too, someone once helped me out. Just
to why I'm helping you. If you really want to
pay me back, here's what you do. Don't let the
chain of love end with you.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And you've been listening to Thomas Weller, the San Diego Highwayman,
telling his story which really started fundamentally in a snow
bank where his car was trapped, and well, there was
no one in sight until one person came by. As
he put it, Thomas, a fellow and a pickup came
by and pulled me out with a He wouldn't take money.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
I never got his name. Pass it on if you
get a chance, is all he said.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
And my goodness, Thomas has been passing it on, and
he has had many chances.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
A highwayman, to admirer.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Charles Carrow called him in nineteen ninety six. Generally highwaymen
are feared, not this one. And we learned about Beulah,
his precious car, which he cobbled together from many different
cars for under one hundred bucks. But as he put it,
for under one hundred dollars, I had a running car
weighing in at five six hundred pounds, with his tools
(09:36):
and his dog Sheila. When we come back more of
Thomas Weller's story, a classic American story here on our
American stories. Oh, and we returned to our American stories
(10:12):
and to Thomas Weller, the San Diego highwayman who spent
much of his life helping motors who were stranded on
the side of the road.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
I was shout by one sixty three and there was
a ninety tea bird on the right shoulder with a
blown tire, and the fellow driving it was a fellon
a jailbird. He was wearing a wife beater shirt and
he had the tear drop tattoos. And just as I
pulled up, his friend pulled up with two sparrow donuts
(10:49):
that they were going to try on the car, and
neither one of them fit. So I gave the guy
my card and I told him I be back with
one that fit. And I drove home here to the
ranch and I picked out one that I knew would fit,
took it back to him, and when I arrived, his
friend had left. He was sitting in the car reading
(11:10):
my card, holding his hand. He didn't believe I was
coming back. He thought he was totally shrewd. He was
down from LA to pick up a friend who was
getting out of jail. I put the spear on and
it worked, and shook hands with him. And this was
a really scary looking guy, and I was kind of
concerned for my safety with him. I turned to leave,
(11:33):
and all of a sudden, he had his hand on
my shoulder and he spun me around, and I was thinking, oh, well,
the guy was crying and he said nobody had ever
done anything for him before in his life. And he
said I just changed his life, and it tears me
(11:58):
up now to tell you about it. He broke down
a cried, this big, scary looking dude. I've had a
number of fellas and gals cry as I'm helping them.
They're the little gal who I helped on the one
sixty three. She was talking to trip Away on the
phone when I pulled up, and she told the Triple
(12:20):
A people, well, the Ghostbuster's card just pulled up behind me.
She was initially scared of me and told me no,
she didn't want to help and want me to leave,
but I want her over and I changed the tower
for her and sent her on her way, and she
sent me a real nice little email saying that she
(12:42):
was the redhead that I'd helped that day, and the
reason she was so scared of me was that she
knew I wasn't trip Away because she was on the
phone to trip Away as I pulled up, and one
of her best friends had been Karen not It's a
long and really sad story about Kara, but this CHP
(13:06):
offer Craig Payer killed Kara or not and attempted to
get away with it, so she was not convinced at
all initially that I was there to help her, and
it goes uphill from there. We still correspond via email
every so often. I had one fellow I help his wife.
(13:29):
She had a bone and shredded tire and a damaged
fender by and he arrived as I was finishing up,
and he tried.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
To pay me.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
This was an expensive vehicle that had the bone tire
and he was driving an expensive vehicle. Well, I wouldn't
take his money, but I lost my sunglasses that day,
and either said something about her. He noticed I didn't
have any. He took off his dispenser sunglasses and gave
them to me, and I did accept those because the
(13:57):
sun was pretty bright. There were a number of hp
aushers through the years who assisted me at scenes as
I assisted them as well, but one particular offsher offsher
cami a little blonde. The first time I met her,
(14:18):
I was on the right shoulder with a young girl
in a Mustang that was broken down, and offsher cami
pulled up and walked up to me and said, let
me see your business license.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
And I didn't know her name.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Then I said, officer, I don't have a business license,
but I do have this, and I gave him my
card and she read the card and her demeanor changed,
and she gave me a hug. And from that day
till the last time I shower, we were good. French.
She I would go out to play, as I called it,
(14:55):
when I was despondent or depressed, because every time I
helped somebody it would raise my spirits. Well, this one night,
I'd gone out to play in a couple hours and
I hadn't found a single person to help. So I'm
headed home and all of a sudden, I get lit
up and pulled over by a HB. And I'm thinking,
(15:16):
that's just great, perfect ending for a perfect day, and
now I'm going to get a ticket and I don't
know for what. Well, the ofusher walks up to my
window and six it's hand in the window and shakes
my hand and he said, for the seventeen years he's
been on the East County beat, he's seen me at
actions and breakdowns and other things doing what I do,
(15:37):
and never had a chance to say thank you because
I always took off so fast. I said, you pulled
me over to say thank you. Yep, he sure did,
and that lifts in my spirits considerably. I haven't ever
had a problem asking for help to help others with,
(16:01):
like when my car broke down or the engine blew up,
or I needed a part or spare tires for folks.
I didn't have any trouble asking for others when I
needed stuff for them. But it's difficult asking for me.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
So some of the people who Thomas had helped and
others who'd heard of the work he was doing, took
it upon themselves to help him back. They came together
to raise money for Thomas to get a set of teeth.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
And I'm gonna cry because I do have teeth now,
thanks to like eleven hundred people, some of whom I
had helped and some I never knew and never will know.
And I have my teeth, and I can eat, and
I've gained a little bit of weight back.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Thomas played on the freeway for fifty one years and
helped over ten thousand people on the side of the road.
In twenty seventeen, Thomas had a stroke that partially disabled him,
preventing him from playing on the freeway any longer.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I'm recovered from cancer two months ago. Luckily they got
it all. I'm real happy to still be here. Folks
are sent me emails and letters, and a couple of
folks who posted stories on the Internet about their experiences
with me and what it meant to them and the
(17:30):
things that they'd done in return. There's just so many
of them. I got stories to fill several books, but
a lot of them are just in my memory and
my one foot stack high. Letters and emails and pictures
in touch, but they're all in my memory. I've had
(17:51):
numerous experiences that convinced me that there are angels out there,
and I've been called an angel any time in my
own shelf. I just realized that I might not have
been here if it hadn't been for that one fell
a help in me. And there's been a number of
people Shench who have a spowers similar feelings for what
(18:15):
I did for them.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
And a terrific job on the production by Madison Derrikut
and a special thanks to Thomas Weller, the San Diego Highwayman.
Fifty one years, ten thousand people helped ten thousand stories
in the end, and he shared some of them with us.
That nineties te bird that was blown out, a blown
out tire, that is, and an ex fellon who was
driving it, and he was driving to pick up another
(18:40):
ex con coming out of jail, and the guy looked tough,
and he had to leave that ex con stranded, go
back at a tire and then come back to him.
And when he was leaving after having fixed the problem,
he felt a hand on the shoulder. When he turned around,
he was a little afraid, and then he saw he
had nothing to fear at all, because that x con
was crying.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
No one had ever done something for me. That man said.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
He even got pulled over by a cop who wanted
to just thank him. And how often does that happen
in any of our lives, that we get pulled over
by law enforcement just to say thank you. Numerous experiences
in my life tell me that there are angels out there.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Well, Thomas Weller is one of them.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
The story of Thomas Weller here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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