My wife, Linda, and I planned to drive through the night from New Orleans to South Carolina to visit our parents for Christmas. Linda worried about our car. My Mercury was 11 years old, with no hubcaps and an exterior dinged up worse than a boxer. I insisted it was in good running condition, though. “Just missing a spare tire, that’s all.”
Two in the morning, somewhere in Alabama, I heard a loud bang, followed by a flapping sound. It was just our luck—a tire had blown out.
There’d been no open service station for miles. “What can we do?” Linda asked.
I pulled over and tried to think. My eyes scanned the heavily wooded area around us. A soft orange glow caught my eye. The light shone from the doorway of a small shanty in the woods just off the road. An elderly man emerged with a kerosene lantern. I cracked the window as he approached my car.
“What seems to be the problem, captain?” he asked.
“Blowout,” I said.
He lowered his lantern to take a look. “I got a tire that’ll fit that,” he said.
No way, old man. Didn’t he know not all tires fit all cars?
But the tire fit like a glove. I tried to offer him money, but he refused payment. “Merry Christmas,” he said.
On our way back, we tried to find the man’s cabin. But it must have been too well hidden by the trees and shrubs. Or maybe…
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