Godsend

By Rusty Daddy

My summer workload was brutal; July brought two huge projects and the best month our 48-year-old company has ever seen, but it was also the most work. 

After weeks without a day off, long 15- to 18-hour days, and many months of stress and rigorous planning, Aug. 1 finally rolled around. I couldn’t wait to take advantage of the annual late-summer slump. The plan was for my son and I to grab a canoe and a couple fly rods and make the easy eight-hour jaunt up to Arkansas for a week of lowkey trout fishing. 

Well, we all know the old adage about making plans. To say the least, God was laughing. Things did not play out exactly as anticipated, but what we experienced instead was a much-needed reminder of the kindness of humanity and a perhaps a small renewal of my faith in this world.

In the days leading up to our trip, I was able to convince my father to come along. It was the guys’ trip with my son and my father that I had thought about many times over the years but was never able to make happen. Honestly, with my dad growing older and my son in his 20s, I had made peace with the idea that this adventure would never come to fruition. Certainly not a week-long trip. This last minute audible was a welcome treat, but it also meant I needed to actually bring a boat instead of the canoe. 

I am blessed to live on the water with a private boat launch in my yard. As wonderful as this may be, I can confidently say it’s not conducive to trailer maintenance. As parts had worn, I had “fixed” them with 2x4s, zip ties and, occasionally, duct tape. I kept my hubs greased and my lights working, but everything else was “coonass functional.” 

Obviously, that would not be sufficient for this trip. I hopped on Amazon at midnight the Wednesday prior to leaving and bought the trailer parts I’d need to make an 16-hour round trip. As I wrapped up my work projects that Friday, there was no time to spare. I jumped on the trailer first thing the next morning. We spent the whole day Saturday, fighting with everything you can imagine. We changed the bunks, the boards, the carpet and the Teflon runners. I rewired the entire trailer just as a precaution, and we installed new springs. The hubs were good, and so were the tires. We greased the bearing buddies, and I bought a new spare for the trip. 

We brought along a hydraulic jack and two Dewalt impact wrenches just in case. Our Saturday tasks ran late into the night and even carried over a little into Sunday morning. By noon, we were done. We packed in a whirlwind that afternoon and headed to dinner to celebrate my son’s 21st birthday. After eating, we took a couple hour’s nap and then three generations of Dawdys hit the road at 1:30 am, headed to the birth state of Walmart, Johnny Cash and Maya Angelou. 

I may have stated this here before, but I much prefer driving on long trips at night — less road rage. 

During dinner the previous evening, the young Mexican waiters, after discovering it was my son’s 21st birthday, kept bringing him tequila shots. So he wasn’t going to be any help with the driving duties. I knew that wouldn’t be an issue. I’m a night owl by nature and was sure I’d be fine for the eight-hour drive. If I did get tired, Dad would be more than capable of handling the last leg of the trip. 

Thanks to a combination of coffee and fluid pills, the first leg of our epic journey was short-lived. We stopped in Oakdale for a quick break. I felt the hubs and did a walkaround. Everything looked good, and we were back on our way. 

The next stop was between 4 or 4:30 am just south of Winnfield, La. When I went to check the trailer, something was noticeably wrong. Very wrong. It was hard to see at first, but the hub was completely gone from the passenger side trailer axle.

Outside of the small country gas station, a man in an old diesel work truck saw our issue and gave us the lay of the land. “NAPA opens at 7. They used to open at 6, but they’re lazy now,” he said in a stern, direct voice, “O’Reilly’s, Auto Zone and Tractor Supply open at 8.” Even though it was still before 5 am, he called a friend who owned a tractor trailer shop to see if he carried anything small enough to help us. They didn’t.

He gave us directions, and with no traffic on the road, we drove five miles per hour up the highway and made it safely to the NAPA parking lot. As the sun came up, I began dealing with the situation so I could be ready to rebuild the hub as soon as they opened. 

When I pulled on the tire, the whole thing came off in my hands. The bearings were completely gone. There was absolutely nothing holding the hub on the axle. It was a complete miracle that the tire hadn’t flown off while bumping down a country highway at 70 miles per hour. 

With nothing to pull against, removing the scorched lugs from the tire was next to impossible. We used a breaker bar and a cheater; inch by inch, we finally got them removed. When the sun came up enough that we could finally see, we had nothing to pull the races from the axle. It seemed like the heat had welded them on. 

Just then, a man pulled up in another work truck. “My boss sent me to check on y’all” he said. He worked for Tommy, the guy we had met at the gas station. He had better tools that allowed us to hammer the stubborn rings off the steel shaft. We got it done just at 7 am, and then we all waited for the NAPA guy, who was late. Our new friend was quick to inform us this NAPA used to open at 6, but they’re lazy now, and who knows when they’ll show up. 

Dad tipped the guy for his help while, across the parking lot, NAPA was unlocking their door. Quickly, I made my way inside, eager to rebuild my hub and get back on the road. Tapping bearings into a hub is never easy, but something didn’t seem right, even though I was certain we had purchased the right size. 

Just then, Tommy, whom we’d met at 4:30 am, showed back up. “Something told me to come check on you,” he said. He had the tools to drive the bearings in his truck. He flipped down a hatch revealing a vise and grabbed a huge socket and a ball peen hammer. After much pounding, it was evident the hub itself was slightly warped and couldn’t be rebuilt. 

By this time, it was 8 am, and Tractor Supply was opening. He grabbed the old hub and said “Hop in.” We drove across the street, and I bought a completely new one. When we went to put it on, the axle was too fouled from the ordeal and had to be reshaped. Not a problem. Tommy had a portable grinder in his truck. (Of course he did.) After honing the axle, we were able to install the new hub and put everything back together. 

At some point Tommy took over my project. He gave me his number and told me to call him if had any more problems. I asked, “Can I pay you anything?” He shrugged it off. As I shook his hand, I told him he was a Godsend. He said, “I don’t know about that. Something told me you’d need some help.” I smiled, taking the loose “slight” as a joke. Tommy remained stoic and never broke character. 

Seeing someone in need is one thing, but disrupting your entire day to help them is something completely different.

The whole time Tommy was seeing to us, he was fielding multiple phone calls. Important phone calls. I overheard him negotiate the terms of a high-dollar contract, and he never stopped hammering on a bearing. It didn’t take long to put together Tommy owned a forestry company and was in high demand. He was driving an old truck, wearing dingy clothes, and his steel-toe boots were worn to the point they were about to start showing metal. In contrast, I was in flip flops and comfortable clothes suitable for an all-night drive. 

When we were in Tractor Supply, a well-dressed man in a pressed shirt and a very nice watch made it a point to cross the store and shake Tommy’s hand. He wanted to do some business with him. It occurred to me that, unlike us, he wanted to pay Tommy handsomely for his time and was willing to get on a waiting list to do so. 

Everything about this guy was out of a different era. He reminded me of an old farmer or rancher, living in a world that he didn’t fit — and maybe the world didn’t fit him, either. He was genuinely busy — busy enough to start his workday prior to 5 am — but he was willing to juggle everything to help three stranded strangers get back on the road. 

We made our way to Heber Spring and only had to deal with one flat tire on the Suburban later that day. The tire shop in Jonesboro, Ark., was very impressed with Dad’s LSU hat, shirt, license plate and bumper sticker. By the time we got to our cabin at 5 pm, the drive had become brutal. Both Dad and I were truly exhausted, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Tommy and the greater meaning of what he had done. 

The next morning, we brought the boat up the river to our cabin and managed to catch a couple fish. The low humidity and cold water of the Ozarks was in stark contrast to the SWLA sauna we were living in days before. On the second day, I hooked a very big brown trout on the first cast and broke him off after maybe 30 seconds. (Note to self: 6x tippet is only about 4-pound test.) I had forgotten that, but losing the largest fish of the trip quickly reminded me. By the end of the day we had caught five. 

By the third day, I had figured things out, and that morning we caught over 20 fish. When they started generating at the dam, I got a kayak paddle and was able to keep the boat orientated in the strong current as we quickly drifted miles back to the launch. We had passed another boat with some young guys, and we managed to catch a fish right in front of them as we drifted by. (If you know you know.) We just waved. 

As I anchored near the launch, waiting on the trailer, the boat with the two guys came drifting by at a fast pace. They were obviously in distress. I fired up the motor and raced toward them. Just before they hit a very large set of rapids, we were able to get a rope to them. Giving everything the engine had, we slowly got them back upstream to the launch. Five or six anglers fishing the nearby shoal watched helplessly as the near catastrophe unfolded. Their aluminum boat would not have fared well in the generator’s current and those large jagged rocks. Had the boat sunk or capsized, it would have been truly dangerous for them to swim in that 55-degree, roaringly swift river. 

To make things even more precarious, that section of river doesn’t have another take-out or road access for miles. As we got them on their trailer, we stood at the top of the hill overlooking the large section of rapids. The reality of how hazardous the situation was began to set in.

The older of the two brothers hugged me and thanked me while looking at his younger brother. He said to me, “You’re a Godsend.”

I had a long drive home to silently ponder the meaning of it all. Had I been in a canoe, we wouldn’t have even been there. If we were, we wouldn’t have been able to help them. I’m not just assuming the worst would have happened, but it was definitely a life-threatening situation for two young guys without life jackets. 

What we did for those two guys didn’t require anywhere near the sacrifice that Tommy had made for us, yet the two things seem undeniably connected, much more than our having used the exact same words.  I put off writing this story because I honestly don’t understand the ending. I wish I could offer some clever take or little anecdote, but nothing seems appropriate.

I would, however, like to say two things. First, like many of you, I spend a disproportionate amount of my life on social media. We all witness the worst of humanity, the awful comments, the vitriol, the polarization, the lack of even the simplest decorum. The web experience makes one think the whole of humanity is willing to blindly hate each other for the pettiest reasons. It’s simply not true. When it comes down to it, most people are still kind, generous and compassionate. Tommy’s generosity, a whole other supererogatory story about the flat tire experience (space constraints prevent me from sharing it here), and the tremendous amount of kindness we witnessed from absolutely everybody we encountered all tell a different story. This trip was full of multiple, weird, specific, random things. People are good, no matter how crazy this world seems right now. 

Secondly, regardless of how many unexplainable, senseless tragedies we witness, God is still here. There is no explanation for that tire not flying off in the middle of the night. Zero. It almost certainly would have bent the axle and ended the whole trip. At the very least, the boat would have ended up on a wrecker headed back to Sulphur. There is absolutely no reason that a 22-year-old outboard started on the first pull when it hadn’t been run at all that day. And there was no expectation that some saltwater guy from SWLA would have a flats skiff on an Arkansas trout river with a poling platform strong enough to attach a rope, at a high enough angle to pull a second boat (a johnboat) without sinking or capsizing it in the turmoil, waves and current. I find it hard to believe that my boat wasn’t somehow maybe meant to be at that exact place, at that exact time.