Good Samaritans of Crystal Springs Road

The birds were singing for the first time this winter when I woke up.

Perhaps they know more about the season than the color of white stuff covering the ground and piled around the driveway indicate.

Perhaps this dismal winter which has me crying,

“Enough!”

with every new snow storm.

If you are wondering why there have been fewer articles this week, there a couple of reasons.

I’ve been shoveling snow.

This was the weekend for a computer upgrade.

After any upgrade, it takes me some time to figure out where everything is.

I still haven’t found my working articles file.

And, Monday night I had a blowout on the McHenry Blacktop coming back from McHenry West High School’s pool.

It was just north of the “S” curve when my rear passenger side tire hit the hole on the county road. (District 3 county board members, how about calling the Highway Department?)

You know the sound of a tire bumping along while it is deflating.

Instead of stopping on the busy blacktop, I drove to Crystal Springs Road and managed to park under to street light right in front of the Bull Valley village sign.

Not a cell phone type of guy, I had left the one my wife bought me at home.

My son held up pretty well as I unloaded the trunk and pulled out the spare tire and figured out how to use the jack.

But, I just wasn’t strong enough to loosen the lug nuts.

I found a weak flash light and flagged down a lady. Unfortunately, her cell phone battery was way down.

A man named Forrest pulled in front of her, thinking I was his father-in-law. He took my motor club information and told me he would call them when he got to his nearby home.

We waited and waited.

Then a man named Chris stopped and asked if he could help.

I asked if he would dial my home and he said, “Here, you do it.”

I told him and my wife we had a service truck coming, because I couldn’t turn the lug nuts.

Wearing a Green Bay Packer jacket, Chris asked if I had a four-way wrench.

I did.

That’s a result of having flat tires on the way to and from Springfield. One at least has a chance of loosening lug nuts with one of them.

Chris was strong.

He looked like he might have been a wrestler.

He managed to loosen the lug nuts.

He told me he had been stranded in a ditch next to a country road a week and a half ago, mentioning that with a GPS system, he might not have gotten out.

Before Chris finished, Mr. Forrest was kind enough to return to tell me that he had called the motor club. He said it took ten minutes to get them to dispatch a truck.

“You need a new motor club,” he advised me.

When we got home an hour and half late, I called the motor club.

“Service in your calling are will be 90 minutes to four hours,” a recording said.

You would not believe the information about me that was not on the card. It took me over five minutes to cancel the call. No wonder it took ten minutes to convince them I had a flat tire.

Being without an internet connection for three days is something like being on vacation.

So, what did I do while waiting to resume my daily routine?

I read all the papers v-e-r-y carefully. (Today, I have read none, but I also went to Kiwanis for lunch at Colonial Cafe. Next Wednesday at noon, State Rep. Mike Tryon is going to speak to the club. If you would like to join us, just show up. Lunch is $10.)

Then, I finished indexing former Governor Dan Walker’s biography. I’ve been doing that a swim practice for well over a month.

Then, I finished a novel, “The Alexandria Link” by Steve Berry (searching for the materials from the Alexandria library and the power information in it contains).

Then, I shoveled more snow.

It takes some time to get back in the groove.


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