Praise for one of the road angels of mercy

Rick Fornshell knows us.

He knows that we climb into our cars in the morning, crank up the radio, swig the coffee and expect an express ride into town with no stops along the way.

He knows we tend to bump into each other at the Lockland curve. That the sun gets in our eyes as we approach Paddock Avenue on Interstate 75. That we're more likely to run out of gas on a Thursday, while we're waiting on payday and pushing our luck.

He knows us because he watches us, every day, on I-75. The frenzied 15-mile stretch from Sharon Road to Ezzard Charles Drive is Rick's workplace. He cruises it continually from 6:30 to 9:30 a.m. and 3 to 6 p.m. He is one of five drivers of Revco Samaritan vans, those road angels of mercy who appear with a tire iron and a smile just when we need them.

And on the hot, hazy days of August, we need them a lot.

Rick knows that heat does bad things to our cars. It is the root word of the verb overheat, which means to send wisps of steam out of our radiators and our nostrils. It is the cause of sinking retreads and sinking spirits, stopped-up fuel filters and - the vilest of road talk - stopped traffic flow.

If you are the cause of that stoppage, ''the expressway becomes a very mean place, a very cold place,'' Rick says knowingly.

No one likes you. No one pities you. And usually no one stops for you. You are no longer human. You have become debris along the road.

That's when Rick comes along, with automotive triage.

Help without judgment

It's happened. Relax. Rick can fix.

The second nicest thing about all of this is that he does it for free (Revco Drug, the regional traffic management system ARTIMIS, and Ohio, Kentucky and federal transportation agencies pay for the service.) The first nicest thing is that Rick, who sees us in all our brake-fluid failures and foibles, doesn't judge us.

He doesn't yell at us, as our spouses would, for ignoring the flashing ENGINE light. He doesn't laugh when some of us swear we didn't know we had a spare.

It's not, he assures us with the manners of a maitre d', our fault.

''It just depends on the god of traffic,'' he says smiling. ''Yeah, traffic patterns are generated by this god of traffic. I guess it's the karma. If everybody's been doing well, then everything's OK out here on the road. If people have been having problems, then it transfers out here.''

So Rick places himself between us and that bad-natured traffic god. He moves us back from the wake of 85-mph semis that barrel 3 feet from our shoulder. He hauls out a long broom and sweeps up what used to be our windshield. He calls for a wrecker, or overnight hotel reservations, or for our brother to come pick us up.

Always understanding

Because Rick Fornshell knows us. And he knows why.

He knows the baby needed nursing or that itch needed scratching. He knows Dad had to fold up an unwieldy map or the kids just had to pee.

''Technically, it's illegal to stop along an expressway for anything but an emergency,'' he says, steering through 5 o'clock traffic. ''But there's a wide range of definitions for an emergency.''

So he looks over our tires and asks about the gas gauge, shoots the breeze for a second to calm us down.

And then this man, who knows every inch of I-75 asphalt, pauses to look at the wildflowers for just a second.

If perchance a monarch butterfly has pulled off to the berm with wing damage or loss of power, he's been known to slip it into the passenger's seat in the van.

''Nobody wants to get stopped out here,'' he says, hair blowing as rush hour rumbles by.

Then Rick Fornshell climbs into his van, ready to save us from ourselves and each other. Because he's not only a good Samaritan, he's also a good guy.

Krista Ramsey's column appears in The Enquirer on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202 or fax at 768-8340.

Published Aug. 10, 1996.