Last week while on a trip in North Carolina I was just tooling along in my bug on Interstate 40 west, the sky was a beautiful Carolina blue, the countryside was lush with the verdant green of the woodlands and all was well. I was in blissful peace as each mile succumbed to the next when suddenly my reverie was shattered by a loud and elongated “psssssssss.” Pulling off to the shoulder of the interstate I got out and examined the car and sure enough my initial diagnosis was the correct one - a flat!
If it had not been for a friend suggesting the day before that I should carry a spare on my trip (which I had not done before since I only drove around the Chattanooga area) I would have been up a creek, uh-h, make that “highway,” without a paddle. I opened the hood and pulled out my spare then grabbed my bottle jack I had thrown in. It was then that I encountered my first lesson of the day - a bottle jack won’t fit under a bug when you have a flat because the whole side of the car is lowered. As I lay there on my side trying to find a way to position the jack somewhere under the car I became aware of a presence. I turned and looked behind me and a beautiful young woman was standing there! “Do you need some help?” she asked. Ahh, the clouds in the cloudless sky began to part!
“Sure, do you have a scissors jack?” I asked her hopefully.
“No” she answered.
“Bummer” I thought. Deciding that the interstate was not the best place to be left stranded I decided to hobble on down the shoulder to the next exit.
“How far to the next exit?” I asked.
“Not far, only about two miles.”
Well, with Hannah (her name I later found out) following me on the shoulder the two miles turned into eight and then another mile up a country road to a diner where an Asplundh tree crew was getting ready to knock off for the day. My tire was now shredded but at least I had my spare. With Hannah asking I suddenly found my bug surrounded by the tree crew as they lifted the side of bug up and they got the jack under it. While the crew pretty much changed the tire for me Hannah asked what year my bug was. “72” I said.
She smiled real pretty and said “I thought so...I have a ‘72 too.”
I knew it! If I had been in any other car on the side of the road without help I’d likely still be sitting there, but in a bug you can be sure someone will stop to lend a hand - maybe even a beautiful woman!
-Charlton (a.k.a. “Bugz”)