The Happy Warrior

              The Happy Warrior

The past two weeks I wrote about epic hitchhiking trips, one bad. After the bad one I opted to travel by plane or my own vehicle. 

  With most of my old family in Boston and my new family in Wannaska, this involved many 1,750 mile trips, often in older vehicles. Two years after Teresa and I were married we bought our place in Wannaska. We had been living in a duplex in St. Paul. 

  We bought a 1969 Ford truck. This was in 1975. Nowadays a six year old truck would be considered almost new. Then it was considered almost old. 

  We needed a truck to haul our belongings North. One weekend a month we’d haul a load to our new place and store it in the garage. We were renting out the house at the time. It’s amazing how much one couple can accumulate in two years. 

One summer we drove the truck to Boston to accumulate more stuff from my parents. The trip out went fine. But on the way home, with the back of the truck loaded with stuff, I noticed steam coming from under the hood in Gary Indiana. 

  We got off the toll road and stopped in a leafy neighborhood of single family homes. I popped the hood and saw radiator coolant steaming out of a short hose between the water pump and the engine. Gary at the time had a reputation as a dangerous place. As I pondered our situation. A guy pulled over and looked at my engine. 

“There’s  a parts store nearby where you can get heater hose,” he said. “Hop in, I’ll take you there.” I asked Teresa what she wanted to do. She bravely volunteered to stay with the truck. 

  Right after I took off with my guardian angel, an old guy came out of his house to investigate. He invited Teresa into his house for a cup of coffee and she bravely accepted. He was one of those harmless old gents who resemble Uncle Fester from the Addams Family. 

  My friend took me to the parts store. I got two inches of heater hose. Plus new clamps. We returned to the truck. My friend wrestled off the bad hose and got the new one in place. 

  Teresa’s friend brought water to top off the radiator. “Check that when you get home,” someone said. 

Teresa also brought me a pair of boots from her friend. “He wants you to try these on,” she said. They fit like gloves. I wore those boots for many years. 

  As we left Gary, my helper, seeing my plates, raised a fist and said “Hubert Humphrey!”

  This was in reference to Senator Humphrey’s mighty work on behalf of racial equality. My friend was black, not that that matters. 

Our crazy uncle