Bus Riding

I had the pleasure of riding the bus to and from work for about three months in which my car was down. I normaly carry my Kenwood D7 on my hip along with a etrex GPS for APRS use. I was readjusting the tone for a IRLP link when I heard a station from germany on the air speaking to another ham about his home town. I looked up and there standing in front of me was a gent about my age with a look on his face. "Can I help you?" I asked him, thinkning that he was going to ask me to turn it down or off as not to disturbe the bus. He started in with half german and half english about my "cell" I gathered from the english side that he had heard the german side of the conversation and had herd his home town named in the QSO. I keyed up in a break and gave my call and asked if the german station was willing to talk to this gentleman. He put him on and I handed the gent in front of me my rig and showed him how to key up and the conversation started with rapid fire german. The whole bus by that time was looking at the two us as I kept an eye on the conversation and ID once in a while. The conversation lasted about three minutes and he handed me back the radio and then hugged me! He explained that this simple conversation had just sent the ham to make a call to his parents in another town to assure them that he was alright and safe. He thanked me for the use of my "Cell" and then we arrived at your stop and all the passengers got off and I never saw him again but had a few paeople ask me about what kind of phone let me call all the way to germany. I made explanations and handed them a few of my QSO cards and bade them a safe trip and hurried off to work. About three months later I got an email from the staiton in germany that had called the folks. He said the Gent was back home and now operating his own station!
Wow who would have thought that a mere "cell" would do all that?

- Peter