Epilogue, Part Two

 Whoever heard of a two-part epilogue? Well it’s necessary in my case. In my first epilogue I described how Steve Reynolds and I drove to a transmission shop in Dubuque to pick up the 1994 Ford Ranger that had broken down there three weeks earlier. 

At that time Teresa and I were driving the truck to Massachusetts to give to our son Joe. My friend Alex who had taken very good care of the truck had given it to us. We didn’t need it so we were driving it east. Fourteen hundred miles. No problem. But five hours into the trip, the transmission fluid began coming out. 

We couldn’t wait for repairs so we rented a vehicle in Dubuque and finished trip. We flew back to Alex’s place near Minneapolis and drove our own vehicle 350 miles home in northwest Minnesota. 

  A couple of weeks later Steve Reynolds and I drove to Dubuque, spent the night then drove the 600 miles home. The truck ran great, but we still didn’t need it. I decided to try driving it east again. Teresa was busy and suggested my sister Mary-Jo go with me. 

  Mary-Jo is always up for an adventure so we synchronized our calendars and she flew to Minneapolis on Thursday, September 10. We hit the road east around noon and made it to Antioch, Illinois on the Wisconsin border. My niece and her fiancé had just bought a house there and my brother Mark had flown out from Boston to help. That was a coincidence we couldn’t pass up. 

  Next morning we drove around Chicago. Traffic was blessedly light. I like taking back roads so once we got out to Portage, Indiana, we dropped south to a secondary road. Mary-Jo scouted ahead on her phone for lodging. She likes Airbnbs and found a downtown third floor apartment in Wooster, Ohio, a college town of 25,000. She said it was one of the top ten micro-cities in the US. Across the street from our apartment was one of the top 100 steak houses in the US. Mary-Jo booked us into both places for Friday night. 

  About forty miles west of Wooster a noisy clatter arose from the bed of the truck. We had been driving along at 65 mph on a busy four lane road and I pulled off at the next exit. I opened the topper door and Mary-Jo said maybe it was my metal coffee cup hitting the fender. Wishful thinking on both our parts. I looked underneath and saw a bracket had rusted off. 

  The truck was driving fine but the noise was ominous. I didn’t want to get back on the fast road so I found a series of back roads that would get us to Wooster. Our apartment was paid for and non-refundable. 

  We limped along at 35 mph. Traffic was light and if a car got stuck behind us, I’d pull over. We rolled into Wooster at seven. People were walking around with beers and there was music in the plaza. Just when things were looking bad, we arrived in heaven. 

  We lugged our luggage up to our apartment and rushed across the street to make our restaurant reservation. Our masked waitress said the city had just that day started a new program called DORA: Downtown Outdoor Recreation Area. The bars and restaurants along the two main streets downtown could put your drink into a plastic cup and you could wander around. 

  We told our waitress our sad story and she called a mechanic friend, but he didn’t answer. After supper we walked around DORA country and found a bar called Muddy’s. The chap next to us at the bar, Boyd, knew a welder who might be able to fix the truck. He got his number for us. Boyd turned out to be a jolly fellow. He was retired and owned a big truck with a hitch. 

  As we chatted we talked about renting one of those special hitches that let you pull a vehicle behind a truck or RV. I’m sure Boyd said he’d tow our truck to Massachusetts if we couldn’t get it fixed. All we had to do was pay for his gas and his beer. We’d put him up at Mary-Jo’s and feed him lobster. Boyd loves lobster. Mary-Jo says I was just fantasizing Boyd’s willingness to tow us 700 miles. 

  She may be right. He was a nice guy though. Next morning, Saturday, I started going down the list of car repair shops. They were either closed till Monday or were closing at noon. I tried a couple and they were too busy to get me in. Finally I tried the Toyota Collision Center. The guy who answered said, “Bring it on over.”

  The shop was a free-standing place less than a mile from downtown. I went into the empty office and saw the manager’s name was Hoss. “This will be interesting,” I thought. I found Hoss, a thin, affable chap and he grabbed a flashlight and rolled under the truck. After about ten minutes he emerged and said our spring hanger was broken. He said the spring hangers kept the rear axle straight. If the other hanger gave way we would not be moving forward any longer. 

  He said he’d drop what he was working on and try to get us going, if he could find a spring hanger. After some calling he found one in a town 25 miles away. I volunteered to drive there but Hoss said he wouldn’t risk driving the truck that far. He said he’d get the part somehow and would get to work. Worst case scenario he might have to pull the gas tank. We could be looking at an eight hour job. He gave us an estimate and I said go for it. 

  We walked back downtown. I stopped at an ATM and got a wad of twenties to pay for the repair. We had a late breakfast and wandered around the downtown stores. We walked a mile to Wooster College. The college was on a hill and as the day was warm, our throats grew parched. We read each other’s minds and headed for Muddy’s. 

  We discussed our options. If the truck wasn’t ready till six, should we spend another night in Wooster? Or should we push on for a few hours? Our original plan was to arrive at Mary-Jo’s on Sunday afternoon. 

As we were mulling this over, Hoss called. “Where are you? I’m coming to pick you up.” He didn’t have to pull the gas tank. 

  Saint Hoss had us on the road by 2:30. No more back roads. Freeway all the way. We made it east of Buffalo and had an easy 450 miles to go on Sunday. Once we arrived I sent a picture of the truck to Hoss with our thanks. We also let Boyd know. “Good news and bad,” he replied. He would have enjoyed a fresh lobster or two.