19 September 2006

In My Little Town

Living in a small town is a good/bad thing.
It's good that everyone knows you and knows your business.
It's bad that everyone knows you and knows your business.

Something about the front suspension on my old, (202,000 miles), car has been rattling, and I can feel a vibration in the steering. I took it to have it fixed. Paul called late in the afternoon to say repairs were complete. (It was a bad sway bar.) I wrote him a check, grabbed the keys, started the car and drove off the lot.
At the stop, the brake pedal went all the way to the floor.
WHOA, Betsy!
Immediate return to Paul's shop....... "Man, Paul, I really need this car tomorrow!"
"What time do you need it?"
"ASAP".

This conversation is taking place at 4:45 P.M., when Paul closes at 5:30.
When I called this morning at 8:15...... "It's done, come get it."
Knowing my urgency, he had the line brought over last night and installed it, then put new brake fluid in and bled the brakes first thing this morning.
I'll be on my way to Big Town to teach students in 30 minutes.

Thanks Paul, and thank God for small town life!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I had a wheel cylinder pack up on a ski trip to Utah last year.

On a Sunday. At 5pm.

Thankfully SLC is a big enough town to have a Pep Boys open late even on Sundays. Complete with its own parts depot of course.

I carry enough tools to do such a job myself by the side of the road, but it wouldn't be fun, and you wouldn't do well finding the parts in most small towns on a Sunday afternoon.

That said, I do love that in my small hometown I can always ensure that my fun cars will pass inspection, even if they are missing some things the government would prefer them to have. :) That is a bit harder to do in impersonal larger towns with more regulatory oversight.

Here in Albuquerque, if I'm wrenching on the car at night with some buddies, we can run down to Autozone at 3am for parts. I can actually buy car parts long after they stop selling beer. As a small town guy this is amazing to me.