Summit Wellness: Gratitude - "That Tow Truck Up North"

By Matt Anthony - Summit FM Digital Media Specialist

Click. Click. Click.

The dashboard lit up, and the 2012 Hyundai wanted to kick over. But it wouldn’t. I tried an Our Father and a Hail Mary. I tried a meditation technique to try to stay calm. I even inserted the key into the ignition after rotating it three times in my hand while chanting in Latin. You know, to add some extra mojo.

But no amount of voodoo could derail the impending call I would have to make to a tow-truck company. On a Sunday. In Dearborn, Michigan.

And isn’t that how it goes? The plan, with no Browns game on the itinerary, was to enjoy a casual Michigan breakfast with Donna and an old radio pal, discuss the previous evening’s Turnpike Troubadours show at Masonic Temple Theatre in Detroit, and take the long way home through northwest Ohio.

But plans get augmented without permission or reasoning. One minute, you’re pondering a hot dog at Tony Packo’s, and the next minute, you’re trying to find a place to stay the night somewhere until your lifeless corpse of a car can get resuscitated the next day.

Forty-five minutes later, the tow truck arrived. It was a young kid, friendly, but preparing to load up our car on his bed with the same mechanical enthusiasm as he probably exhibited earlier in the day with someone else’s vehicle. “You guys can go sit in the front seat of the truck if you want,” he yelled through the early, gray afternoon chill.

The warmth of the truck’s interior felt good. But the thought of trying to find a room to stay in, along with the uncertainty of everything else, brought me back to reality. Having car trouble miles from home really sucks.

Rumbling down Telegraph Road, we approached an AutoTech Clinic location.

“That guy’s really good,” our driver blurted out above the din of his diesel engine after asking me where he should dump our car.  I glanced in the rear-view mirror at the Hyundai back on the bed. It looked forlorn like a sick doggie headed to the vet. “I wish they were open on Sunday,” I responded.

We had turned down an access road, and he suddenly wheeled the truck around. “Looks like they had a bay door open.  Maybe they are.”

But when I arrived at the AutoTech location, it was clearly closed. So, I pulled out my phone to locate the mechanic the insurance company had assigned me. 

But our driver also started looking through his phone. And then, like an underperforming team in a game getting a momentum swing, the direction of the day suddenly changed course. Our driver (who I would later learn was also a mechanic, convinced that our lifeless vehicle merely needed a new starter) started calling location after location. Phones rung off the hook. Answering machines piled up. But he would not be deterred.

Finally, after the eighth or ninth call, a man with what sounded like a thick Arab accent answered the phone at a Quick Lube shop nearby and told us to come by. Donna pinched my leg as if to say, ‘Is there a chance we might not have to stay the night in Dearborn, Michigan?’

Fred Rogers was once quoted as saying, “Look for the helpers. You can always find the helpers.” Later that afternoon, while crossing over the Ohio state line and rolling past the ‘Welcome to Toledo’ sign, I thought of Mr. Rogers and his quote, and a tremendous wave of gratitude washed over me. 

I thought of my friend, Mark, who we met there for breakfast at that Bob Evans, who returned with a pair of jumper cables, to no avail. I thought of the elderly couple who saw us sitting there an hour later with our car-hood open, who offered to drive us somewhere. And I thought of the guy in the Lions sweatshirt who peered down into the engine and then just shook his head, helpless.

And, certainly, I thought about that guy at the Quick Lube, open on a Sunday, who snagged his assistant and, together, with repeated attempts, managed to bring a motionless 2012 Santa Fe back to life after putting a battery charger through its paces. I can still see the smile on his face, looking at me while gunning the engine and screaming, in broken English, “You need a new starter. Don’t turn this car off again until you’re home in Ohio!”

But I’m most grateful for a tow truck driver who went out of his way to help when he could have simply dumped us off at an auto repair shop somewhere in Dearborn, leaving us to fend for ourselves. While using my E-Z Pass to get on the turnpike, with Turnpike Troubadours blaring, I made a silent promise to myself to remember to be a better helper.