Yes It’s True: Hopkins visit reminds me of Willoughby

“Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear…”

After a disappointing shopping experience at a big box store Monday in Grand Rapids, I decided to change gears Tuesday and take a chance on a short trip to Hopkins to buy gasoline advertised as $2.99 per gallon.

While in GR, I failed to buy gas because the station wouldn’t take my credit card and at the big box store I was told that if I wanted a plastic bag for the computer-related items I bought, it would be an extra 5 cents per bag.

When I asked why the charge for plastic bags, the clerk replied that it was a corporate business decision.

Thus, I prepared myself for more bad experiences in taking a chance on buying gas in Hopkins.

I decided on Hopkins because Mimi Gabriel, former Allegan County United Way director and a good friend, posted on Facebook that CD’s Quik Mart, founded by her husband, Dallas Kerber and run by his family, was selling gas cheap. So I took a chance.

I was astonished when I pulled into the station to find that there were no slots to insert a credit card and pay at the pump. I haven’t seen anything like that in decades.

Nevertheless, I pumped the gas, which indeed was $2.99 a gallon.

A man filling his truck next to me then said, “I’ll trade my gas bill for yours.”

“No deal,” I replied, noting his truck has a much larger gas tank and probably was a lot less fuel efficient.

We talked further briefly about how much gas prices has improved over the past couple of months.

But when I went inside the Mart to pay, the clerk told me, “You’re taken care of.” He said the guy who was next to me had paid my bill.

I didn’t understand. No one had ever done anything like that for me. I had only heard quaint stories about motorists who paid for someone in back of them in a drive-through at a fast-food restaurant and I believed these incidents were newsworthy because they were rare.

So I pressed the clerk further: “Who was that guy?”

A man who I surmised was Kerber the Younger, proprietor of Quik Mart, then said to me, “I think he just wants you to pay it forward.”

I continued to grill Kerber the Younger and the clerk on the identity of the Good Samaritan, declaring, “No good deed should go unpunished.”

Under such relentless pressure (after all, I am a member of the pesky press), the clerk caved and admitted the man was Ken Post, a builder from the Shelbyville area, and he was that kind of a hairpin (with apologies to Jimmy Cagney). So I’m outing him here.

I asked Kerber the Younger how he was able to sell gas at the cheaper price, he just said it’s important to treat customers and people in the community with fairness. I asked why others don’t do that, he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t know.”

As I was driving back to Wayland, I was reminded of the Twilight Zone TV episode from more than 60 years ago, “A Trip to Willoughby.” It was about an elderly man on a train who was anxiously awaiting his stop at the community of Willoughby, a step back in time where everybody was friendly and knew your name and treated you right.

The man finally heard the conductor announced the train’s arrival at Willoughby and he exited to be greeted by a quaint little town of friendly folks. It turned out, however, he only had been dreaming and died of a heart attack instead on the train.

My ending was a lot happier than Rod Serling’s.