It’s not just a life, it’s an adventure!
Could there be a greater catastrophe than to have a vehicle breakdown while on the road? As I started “Hail and Farewell Journey 2012,” it wasn’t a very encouraging start. In fact, it was no start at all as my truck battery apparently crashed. I had spent the morning loading my trailer and as I got in the truck to move on I told Pup, the pup, “it’s time to rock and rooooollllllllll” and turned the key. Nothing happened.
Now let’s think about this. I have just handed over the keys to my apartment and have left it. Officially I have no home. It's my first day as a full-time RVer. And my vehicles are parked in a fire zone. It is uncomfortable. Way more than uncomfortable. It is raining and threatening to snow and I need to get on the road so I can arrive at my Northwest Virginia campground at a reasonable hour. Anyhow, I go across the street to the mechanic who I have become somewhat friendly. Jeff is honest and has brought his mom and dad into the shop. Mom handles the books and Dad is a pretty fair mechanic on his own. I tell him what’s going on and he sends his dad to help me.
We figure out the apparent cause of the dead battery – that the battery serving my RV trailer had died with the lights on and that it then drained out the truck battery. It would not start with a battery booster pack but did with the truck. As we looked at the gauges, the battery is charging (and so is the trailer battery when I reconnect it).
And so finally I’m on the road. I gassed up and took a quick stop at my RV dealer to pick up a couple of parts and then headed to Winchester VA. Along the way, I took a couple of rest stops and the truck started up right away. I arrived safely at my campground, and after a good night’s sleep I meet my friends, Carol and Jim, for lunch. Carol, the absolutely most beautiful girl ever to grace an 8th grade classroom, has had a wisdom tooth removed and is having her first solid meal in weeks. We have a nice time and I give them parting gifts. God willing, I am heading to Oregon later this year for the summer and after that, who knows?
So I drive back across the street to take care of some things and then go to move my truck into a parking area. It does not start. The manager of the campground tries to jump it with a battery pack. No good. I call Jim and Carol and they return to take me to the nearby Wal-Mart where I purchase a new battery. I figure that perhaps the battery has a bad cell and since it’s five years old anyhow, it’s time to change it anyhow. Of course it does not start.
Jim and Carol have brought me a local phone book with the name of the mechanic they recommend. He is also the local AAA tower so I figure things are great. So I call AAA and discover my darling ex has cancelled my account, which was due to, expire at the end of the month. Darling ex, when you read this, I hope you are enjoying your moment.
Anyhow, by this time we have figured out that it is either the starter or the solenoid and in the case of a Dodge truck, they are attached. As night continues, I check out the warranty I purchased with the truck. It expires in 7,000 miles so I figure that it will last at least until I reach Oregon. It covers the tow and has a $100 deductible with any repair. Whew! I also discover that my car insurance also covers the tow.
In the morning, I call the shop and the tow truck comes. Again, it won’t start with the battery jumper; again it starts with the jump from the truck. I follow the tow truck into town and things start to turn around. The woman who logs in the cars moves me to the top of the list since I’m on the road. And the insurance verifies I am covered. The mechanic looks at it and, of course, can't find anything wrong since the starter is working at the moment. I tell him it's one thing to be stranded in Winchester, VA and quite another to be stranded in the Arizona desert or the Everglades to please replace it. He laughs and tells me it will be ready about a half hour after the part arrives.
So I walk a few blocks to MacDonald’s for breakfast and try to relax. I am still fuming and full of self-pity. Why God? Why do I have to have a breakdown? What did I do wrong? Are you punishing me for going on the road again? Etc. By now, I am raving a little and the manager, a kid, asks if I'm OK? I can tell it is clear to him that I would be better off not being here.
Despite saying grace as well as making demands, God isn’t answering me. But he will in a few minutes. As I return to the garage’s waiting room, I meet my third West-By-God Virginian.
Now I am certainly not going to judge the people of an entire state by the only three people I have met from there. But the three I have met are quite colorful characters. The first gentleman was, for lack of a better word, a hillbilly. He dressed like Pappy from Little Abner, except a little more ragged, and he chewed tobacca and had a drawl unlike anything I ever heard. His beard was long and untrimmed.
He was my camping neighbor and was en route from workamping in West Virginia to Florida. Every morning, there was an empty case of Rolling Rock outside his door. I shy away from drinkers and did my best to ignore him, but I had to walk my dog and we talked a couple of times. This was in October of 2011 at the same campground. We had a freak snowstorm that shut down much of the east coast and we both spent time helping our neighbors digging out. Nice man, but very different from me.
The second West Virginian I met was the daughter of a family that moved to the hills while her father was working for the government. Now she is fairly sane and has lived near Lake Ontario for years. But when she was a child, her mom got into a gunfight with some of the neighbors. It seems momma didn't like hunters and she threatened them with a gun, demanding they get off her land. The hunters had been hunting on that land for generations and late at night, they started shooting at the building. "Come and get me," she screamed t them, shooting back as her daughter hid in her bedroom, covered by her mattress. Thereafter, she was known as "Annie Oakley," and many years later while traveling through West Virginia, I found an Annie Oakley Road near where she lived.
But the third was the most interesting one. Now this ole boy appeared to be in his mid thirties. His dyed blond hair was receding and he combed over the bald spot. And he spoke with that “twang”. And as he talked to me, I knew why God wanted me in that garage. He wanted to entertain me and, at the same time, get out of my self-centered righteousness mode.
Seems that the man had his tires slashed and couldn’t get off one of the lug nuts to change it. Not only that, but his girlfriend’s tire was also slashed. Turned out that, by golly, she had a date in court that day to fight over child custody with her current husband. Now the good ole boy figured that “his” girl’s husband didn’t want her to get to court. So he’s a figuring to stay up tonight in his minivan with a shotgun to blow away hubby if he tries to slash the tires again. He decides that I’m a “right sensible fella” and asks me if he should blow him away or beat him to a pulp with a baseball bat. I respond by saying I’ll see him in the local newspaper in a day or so and point out that if the hubby is not around, he can’t pay child support. A point the ole boy seems to agree with.
I excuse myself to go to the men’s room, which would require several pages to describe, and when I return, there is the chubby little darlin’ herself. She can’t be more than 19 and she’s wearing a XXXL size NASCAR jacket. She's about 4'8" tall and 4'9" wide. Her dyed blond hair is identical to her boyfriend's. She twangs about how the hubby and her have to go back to court later in the day to continue the hearing. I asked her how soon will she be divorced. “Oh, he ain’t filed anything yet,” she replies. “He wants us to get back together but I’m not thinking about that.” I comment on her NASCAR jacket and she tells me she stole it from her husband. I comment that that just might be the reason her tires got slashed and she too says I'm a "right sensible fella -- for a damn yankee." Her boyfriend tells her that if he shoots hubby, there will be no child support. “You better not shoot him,” she says, adding that she wouldn’t mind if he took a razor and “cut his dick off. He don't need it for child support and anyhows don't know how to use it anyhows."
Shortly after that, my car is ready. The entertainment has come to an end. I get in the truck and by God it starts up! I think about how these two people are making things harder on themselves (just like me) and realize that there are many, many stories yet to be told and I am probably here to tell them. So what the heck? It’s time to get off the computer and see if the car starts today. I’ve got more than a century of photos to share with my cuz and there is a snowstorm heading my way -- so on with the show -- it’s time to rock and rooooollllllllll!”
