Need a Tow?

This is an older rant, but it seemed to need an audience.

Years ago, I remember Doc White had a 37′ sail boat. One time one of the guests aboard gave him grief about something, upsetting the other guests. Later he talked to my mother about it. He was puzzled about the reason for the unpleasantness and remarked, rather plaintively, “After all, it’s my boat.”

Matthew and So Jung drove up from Los Angeles one Christmas, and I decided to wait up for them. I have an iPhone app called Find Friends and looked from time to time while I watched a movie. I was excited when I saw that they were near Auburn.

When they got to the Colfax off-ramp I turned on the porch light and got ready to greet them. A few minutes later I checked again and they were coming up the last two miles. We have a driveway “beeper” that sounds in the house when someone approaches so I finished watching a movie while I waited for the beep.

Two miles is not that far so I checked again. The little dot seemed to indicated they were at the bottom of the driveway. It was 1:30AM, and after several more minutes the dot had not moved.

I went outside and could see lights down at the bottom of the drive. I got a little nervous and went back in to get my boots and a flashlight. By the time I got to the curve in the drive, I could hear a diesel engine idling and could see tow truck lights. Now I was really concerned.

I walked down to the bottom of the hill and looked up at the cab of the huge tow truck big enough to haul the motor home. I could see he was not towing anything, but a car was sitting behind the truck and another was driving away.

     What’s going on?” I asked.
     The driver looked down and said, “I had a call. What do you need?”
     “I live here. What are you doing?”
     “I had to take care of the customer and have to finish my paperwork.”
     “Well, my son is waiting to get up the drive.”
     “Yeah, I know. He came and asked me what I was doing. I told him to just hang on a minute.”
     I was a bit perplexed, and asked, “Would you like to pull up into the yard where you can turn around?”
     “No, I will be done in a few minutes.”
     I explained that my son has been driving for almost eight hours and would like to get in the driveway.
     “Yeah, he told me that. I said I would be done in a while.”
     I met Matthew near the street. He was exasperated and wondered what this guy was doing?
     I returned to the driver who said, “I am ready to back out, if that guy didn’t pull in too close behind me.”
     I assured him “that guy” had not and went to check. Matthew was off to the right as far as he could get without having his car hanging out on the road. The tow truck driver backed out into the middle of the street and roared off up the hill.

Matthew and So Jung finally got to go up to the house. I decided to walk and idly thought, “After all, it’s my driveway.”