City Cliche in the Country

So often in my life I try to extract meaning from the moments that happen to me. That meaning gives purpose to otherwise random, and often, excruciatingly awkward moments.

Not this time.

Sometimes things just happen and become a meaningless detour, a brief aside to the business of living.

And that is this story.

On a Tuesday I left Georgia to head towards the Tennessee Mountains. I had reserved a cabin and had the intention of surprising L for her birthday. The drive was beautiful, the mountains, the leaves changing, I stopped in the middle of the road just to take in the view. And get some pictures because its not real if you can't post it to social media. Am I right?

The road takes me up into the foothills and then back down in a valley by the river. The GPS is telling me my destination is on the right, in 1000 feet. Something doesn't look quite right. But google wouldn't steer me wrong would it?

I see a gravel hill leading up to a worn house. "eww," I think. "God I hope that's not it." I want to pull up the photo to confirm but, of course, no service.

So I pull up the driveway, the very-steep-covered-in-gravel-over-mud driveway. Because I drive a stick shift this in itself is a challenge. Once I got to the top, I felt pretty sure this wasn't it. I wanted to back up and leave only backing up put me at risk of going off the steep side.

I tried to go forward. I couldn't. That's where the gravel ended and only the mud remained. And that's when my car started to slide backward. That was ok, I just corrected the wheel so I wouldn't go flying off the edge. Except I corrected too much. My car started backing up over a ledge, and it kept backing up. At that point I lost control of where it was headed and it just kept backing up. And that was ok. Until it started tipping over. And when I realized it was on two wheels, I figured I better get out before I rolled off the side of the hill.

Things were not great. Here I was, in the middle of no where, with no service, low battery (of course) no one to be found. While I considered what to do I snapped a few pictures, you know, for evidence. As a I considered my situation, I became all too aware that I was A) Parked under a lot of walnut trees, trees that were literally trying to smash out my window or give me a concussion. Walnuts grow in giant green baseballs and when they are ready, they throw them at anyone naive enough to stand under them with great force. B) Bugs really like the green baseballs and they had found me to be a satisfying second course.

Across the street was an empty field and a river, beside me was a graveyard and a church. I decided to walk over and see if anyone was at the church.

No one was.

Feeling slightly panicked I decided to wave someone down, maybe some kind resident of Briceville, TN would stop and help. Unfortunately the residents were far too nice, every time I waived at one, they waived back and kept driving.

Time to change my waving strategy. I tried the two-hand over the head wave. It worked because the next car stopped and a nice young guy, employed by Dayton Pest Control, offered to help. I couldn't have been more grateful or sorry. Having just finished a day of work and still being an hour from home he did everything he could to get my car unstuck.

It didn't work. "If we just had one more person," he said as I launched myself out of the sideways car, no easy task.

So we decided to flag someone else down. We had to wait a while because of course we were in the middle of no where, but finally someone stopped. A nice elderly lady who I immediately apologized to because of course she couldn't help. I told her we would flag someone else down and she told me she'd go down the road and get Zach. She did and came back to tell us he was on the way., like we knew him.

We both agreed, me and Dayton Pest Control, that we hoped Zach would prove to be an asset to our team.

So Zach showed up and Dayton Pest Control described him to me later as "backwoods," he was missing a few teeth, he was a coal miner by trade but also took odd jobs like mowing though he was looking to get out of it. He only became a coal miner because there were no opportunities when he graduated highschool, He didn't do much fishing because the lake they said was poisonous to the animals and anyone trying to eat the fish and he often saw a good amount of deer in the area. These were all things I learned about Zach throughout the evening.

The first thing he told us though was that my car was the 4th or 5th that had been stuck up there like that, his words, later it became 7 or 8, then 10 or 11. I didn't mind though, the more people that he talked about the better I felt.

It turns out I had stranded myself in front of Lula May's house. Once when she broke her hip the ambulance had gotten caught trying to back out and taken their muffler off  and when Zach tried to help they made him liable for the muffler. Well, that was it for Zach. " I ain't responsible for nothin', " he told me and dayton pest control as he threw up his hands. "Soooo," I thought "does this mean he's not going to help me or what?"

Well as it turns out Lula May's son works as an electrician for the city in another town and Zach not only had the keys to her house but also her son, Jimmy's, number. Great, only Lula May's phone was disconnected because she isn't there right now. Zach has me and Dayton Pest Control walk down the road until we get signal. He then calls Jimmy and tells him what has happened, well he says to go on ahead and try to get it unstuck but notes its a shame Jimmy someone-else (everyone from here on out is literally named Jimmy) isn't there with his tractor because he could just pull me out. Thanks Jimmy.

Does this story feel long? Imagine living it. Why didn't we call a wrecker? Well, because right in front of my car, beside the house was the gas tank that fed the house, A wrecker couldn't reach me. Of course.

So me, Zach and Dayton Pest Control go back to the car. I throw myself back into the drivers seat as Zach repeatedly tries and fails all the things Dayton Pest Control has previously tried. "I got one more solution" he says and at this point I'm ready to just leave my car to Lula May's offspring and call it a life.

Finally, Zach says "If we just had one more person..." now where have I heard that?

So I say, moving to action, "Why don't we flag someone else down?" "Who are we gonna flag down?" Zach asks. I mean, I don't know but are we just gonna stand there? So we stand on the side of the road like idiots, Dayton Pest Control talking about his ancestors who were coal miners, Zach telling me we only have 45 minutes of daylight left and me, laying my head on  a bottle of bugspray for comfort.

Finally Zach agrees we should flag someone down and about that time a purple truck pulls into the graveyard next door. "How about that guy?" I ask. "Nah he probably won't help." Zach says. You know what Zach, you're really starting to turn into a negative Ned. He goes down to talk to what turns out to be a man in his 100's, I think. About literally 10 years later Zach comes back and the man pulls off. "Helps coming, " he says. Great. Finally. "If they come you'll have a lot of help." If? You know what Zach....

It's so hot, and bugs and the  walnuts. After about 20 minutes I wonder if they are coming. Should we flag someone else down? "Who?" Zach says discouragingly again. About that time a car passes with two young guys. "We could have flagged them down." That was Dayton Pest Control, he's been on my side this whole time. "Well we don't know what  kinda shape theys in now do we?" Zach says, ever the model for positive thinking.

So Zach finally agrees after another 10 minutes that if no one stops in 10  minutes we should try for someone else. Five minutes after that a truck of 6 guys pulls up. Sadly my camera died otherwise I would have loved to have a picture that looked like the scene out of movie. Except in that movie Briceville would have been a sun-down town and I would not have hailed this truck full of men as help.

As it was, I wasn't too keen on the fact that I was alone in the country with 8 strange men. Zach decides to ask me in front of all of them if I was staying alone out there. "No, staying with friends" I lie. That night I was alone. Thanks Zach...

So anyway, they pull up and say "What seems to be the trouble?" They all laugh at me and my city ways and Zach tells them this is the 15th car he's seen stuck like that.

But they help me, they get me unstuck in a matter of two minutes and they back my car out of Lula May's driveway. And I am thankful. Dayton Pest Control stays with me to the end and I'm thankful for that as well because I felt safe with him, probably it was the uniform I don't know. I'm thankful for out truck of reinforcements, and even Zach, yes, even him. Actually I really was grateful for everyone, they didn't know me and didn't have to help me and I had spent the good part of the past 3 hours telling them that in a million ways.

A lot of other things happened that night that left me with a stress headache but, I made it to cabin only about 3 hours after I arrived.

And I took a Tire Iron with me into the house, just in case.

And we saw Zach the next day mowing the grass. "Now you ain't drove up that hill no more have yea?"

Very funny, Zach.