While sitting in the rain on the Hendersonville Road in South Carolina my windshield wipers died. This was the first real mechanical problem I had encountered on my travels. South Carolina was to be the last state that I visited before a month’s return to Maine. The radio new’s was abuzz about an ice storm making it’s way east. 

A friendly Walterboro convenience store clerk directed me to the garage he used and thought they might be able to get me in and do the repairs. I spent the next two days sitting in the waiting room at Paul’s Auto Repair consulting via texts with my mechanically gifted friend, Tom, and getting periodic reports of progress and roadblocks in the repair of my wipers.

Dolly made friends with the receptionist, received affection and treats, and greeted customers. Finally, I had a new wiper motor, but the wipers still didn’t work. Now they thought I needed a part that was no longer made and it was going to take more than a week to get a used one from eBay.

I decided to Rainex the windshield, make a dash for my sister’s house in Virginia, wait out the storm there, and then proceed home where I would rely on Ian, another mechanical wizard I’m lucky to know. I hoped the roads would be clear and dry. Mysteriously in Pennsylvania the wipers started working again, but at about 45 degrees out of proper alignment. They were cleaning the hood instead of the windshield.

My only minor mechanical issue before this was running my battery down by leaving the lights on. I had gotten used to automatic lights and often forgot to turn my lights off manually in this older Dodge Van.

The dead-battery fix was to attract a passerby by putting the hood up and standing alongside the road holding jumper cables overhead like a 10-foot snake. That turned out to be an understandable method of communication and I got the jump I needed. I sent my rescuers a copy of the drawing I had made while running down my lights and I hope they were able to print it and hang it on their refrigerator.

People are kind and they’ll help you out in a fix, I’m more convinced of that than ever. Engaging with the people that I’ve met while traveling has always been worthwhile. My friend Paul gave me a good line to use to approach strangers and I'll share it.

Ask them, “What did you do today?” It’s unexpected, shows you’re interested, and they’ve got an easy question to answer — you’re on your way to making a new friend.

Driving down a remote road in Alabama I passed a pickup with the hood up and turned around to see if I could help. An older gentleman (a few years younger than me) was sitting in the driver’s seat. He was completely surprised by my license plate. He couldn’t believe it  wasn’t a neighbor Alabaman who had stopped to offer help.

When he got over his surprise he allowed that, “unless you’ve got a new engine, I don’t suppose you can help.”

He started the truck up and it made the horrible sound of the rods thrashing around before he turned it quickly off. It took awhile, but he finally found an insurance card and made a call to his agent and found out he had towing insurance. He got a number to call.

The towing dispatcher turned out to have a heavy south Asian accent. He thought he might be talking to someone in India. She couldn’t understand his Alabama accent and he couldn’t understand hers. It seemed like she wanted his insurance number. He gave me the phone while he searched for his card again, and I became the translator.

She was somewhat impatient while he looked for his insurance card with increasing frustration. We all know that position of just having something in your hand and then losing it while trying to talk on the phone — that situation and feeling should have a special name, maybe something from German.

Eventually I joined the search and found the card for him. If it was a snake, of course it would have bit him.

Next, reasonably she wanted to know where we were. He didn’t know exactly — a half hour north of Highland Home was the best he could do. Facing a $10,000 new engine bill, not being able to understand nor being understood, my new friend was starting to unravel. 

“What city are you in sir?” 

I translated: “She want’s to know what city we’re in.”

“I’m not in a city, I’m in the middle of nowhere! With a blown engine!”

He spoke this loud enough that I didn’t need to hand him the phone and It may not have needed a translation, but I told her we weren’t in a city.

“You must be in a city, sir.”

At this point he could see no further point in talking to her. So I said we’d try to figure it out and she was willing to wait.

Asking Siri didn’t work - spotty cell service.

But finally with my GPS, I got a county road route number, but she couldn’t find it. 

Next I drove down the road about a quarter mile to the intersection of a smaller road where there was a church, The Mt. Olive Baptist Church. The woman on the other end of the line found out there were maybe 150 Mt. Olive Baptist Churches and she wasn’t coming up with a Plan B.  So we went through it again starting in Highland Home and working north. Finally she was able to give us the name of an acceptable Alabama towing company and gave us a phone number. Mercifully they figured out where we were.

In the next couple of hours we waited for the tow truck. He told me a story about being a young soldier in basic training far from Alabama, but somewhere in the U.S. He met a young woman who invited him to a party to meet her friends. When he arrived she wanted him to talk. She and all her friends laughed at his accent. He felt he had been nothing more than an entertainment and they assumed he was kind of stupid. He’d carried that memory with him for 60 years. 

Talking to people can be tough.  Sometimes you just have to stand by the road, hold up some jumper cables, not open your mouth, and hope it doesn't rain.