Irony... and Ashreichem Yisroel...

You wanna hear irony at its best? I spent two years commuting to college and the entire time I didn't own a car. I managed to get rides back and forth the entire two years. I would wait outside school and inevitably someone from my area would come out and I would hitch a ride back home with him. I have since graduated with a Bachelors degree and have not been back for a couple of months. Tonight I returned to college to pick up my cap and gown for the graduation ceremony... And I got stranded at college with no ride back! I went back and forth for two years and never got stranded once. I go back for one night to get my cap and gown and manage to get myself stuck there. (Ok... so maybe it isn't the dictionary definition of irony but it is definitely irony in an Alanis Morissettey kind of way.) But here is the great part of it all. In order to get a ride back I went to a local shul and figured that after davening I would see if there was anyone going my way. I stood outside asking people if they were headed towards my home, which was about a forty minute trip (sleeping on a park bench didn't exactly appeal to me). One guy looked at me and said, "Wow, that is quite a drive." Then he just stood there staring at me pensively for a while. After quite a pause, he looked up and said to me, “Do you have a Chumash?” I said, “No, but I am sure they have one inside the shul.” He responded, “No, I mean do you have a sefer on you?” I inquired as to why he was asking and he said, “I will drive you home al t'nai (on condition) you learn out loud the entire trip back. But ONLY if you are willing to do it the entire trip.” This man lived a block away from where we were standing but he was willing to go out of his way and drive me ~ 40 minutes out of his way (each way) in exchange for me learning with him. As pessimistic as I am about life, some things just happen to me and I have to stop and say WOW! (I forgot to mention that this was at about midnight so he would not have arrived back home until after 1AM.) It is inspiring to me to find someone who values Torah enough that he was willing to go out of his way late at night to do me a favor like that. I declined since I didn't want to trouble him and thought I would get another ride (which I did). Nevertheless, I took down his number just in case I got stuck. But I got more than just his number. I received a little flicker of inspiration and something to think about as I head off to bed tonight. I hope there are more people like him out there. I wish this had happened to me before tonight. I think if it had, I would have had more than just the literal translation on my mind when I sang on Lag B'omer:
Ashreichem Yisroel!