An Unexpected Savior
“Let thy heart apply itself to instruction:
And thy ears to words of knowledge”
Proverbs 23:12
As newlyweds in November 1996, Patty and I were as equally excited about our honeymoon as we were about starting our lives together. The first and only place either of us thought about to go to was the one and only Ireland. We just celebrated our 15th anniversary, and I can tell you I remember the trip as if it were my yesterday. Unparalleled hospitality, eye feasting landscapes, the cleanest air I’ve ever breathed, and awe inspiring views of history thousands of years old.
The Irish embrace history, and they relish in their artifacts and ruins, like an antique collector whose shop is the entire island. Even today I remember the feeling in my gut as I stood at the gates of a cemetery with headstones dating to the 900’s. Towering castles, so solid in construction, they shall outlive them people who pass them.
The grass truly is the greenest I’ve seen, and by far Ireland has the most heartwarming people I’ve ever met. So when our trip started suffering a series of small funny happenings, we laughed and joked about it. While driving near Kilkenny one day we had to stop on a narrow country road for a herd or cattle being moved by their keeper. They surrounded our car as they passed us, bumping and shaking us in our seats. One of them tore off the driver’s side mirror.
At one bed and breakfast, we caught the homeowner by surprise one evening, and while she let us in to stay the night, she was somewhat less than cordial in the morning. We woke around 7 am and came downstairs to eat, not realizing that in the off season, some B&B’s are ill prepared, or more appropriately, ill-willing to show us a kind meal and fare-thee-well. As we sat at the table sort of waiting for her to show up, we contemplated just leaving to find breakfast elsewhere. That’s when our real host, 4 year old Noel, came down and engaged us in good old fashioned Irish conversation. He showed us some toys, talked about finding the “Santy Claus” clothes (hidden Christmas gifts), and asked us our names at least three times. I have to admit, he was the cutest kid we’d ever seen. He told us mommy was sleeping, but since he was hungry too, he’d go get her. We could hear them talking, waa waa waa “Peanuts Teacher” style upstairs, and after Noel returned 10 minutes later, his mother finally came down. She appeared quite disheveled and annoyed at our presence, and yet she pushed through her angst to serve us.
She came in first and slammed down 2 coffee cups. There were no menus, but we sort of looked at each other like, “we’ll just take what we can get”, and frustrated, we dealt with it. Noel kept us quite amused as we listened to his mother bang around the pots and pans in the kitchen, surely cursing us under her breath.
She served us runny eggs, undercooked bacon, and burned toast, and we never even got the coffee. Upon slapping the plates in front of us, she retired upstairs never to be seen again. We ate what we could and left, bidding our “host” Noel a fond farewell. Patty told him to make sure mommy doesn’t know he saw the Christmas gifts, and to be a good boy. We held hands as we walked to the car and just smiled at each other, because we were happy we were there, despite our less than usual stay. To this day, it’s my favorite part of the trip. Noel should be about 18 now, and all I can say is I hope he’s doing well as a young adult in Ireland. By the way, this woman was the only person we met there who was less than cordial, but we were totally fine with it. We were newlyweds. Our greater interest was in each other. We do thank her for taking us in. Even the Irish can have bad days.
Speaking of bad days, all our little strange happenings were started on the first day actually, not long after we arrived. We left NY at 6pm, and arrived in Dublin at 6 am, locally, but to us it was midnight. The money exchange counter at the airport was closed, but we had our rental car and lodging vouchers so we headed out to find our first place to stay. I found driving on the opposite side of the road quite easy, and using our trusty map, we headed south through County Wicklow towards Glendalough. It was a windy bumpy mountain road, and although we were tired, we were quite enjoying the new landscape. As the elevations increased, the width of the road decreased, and we suddenly realized we must have hit a stone or something because we noticed a tire going flat. Luckily this happened only a few hundred feet from a well hidden mountain hotel, with beautiful architecture, and the ruins of a 1000 year old cemetery and church behind hit. We slowly parked the car in the empty lot, and got out into the chilly air to indeed find a flat tire. After searching fruitlessly for a jack , we did notice a spare in the trunk. But clearly we were in a dilemma, having no way to change the tire. We went inside the hotel, which wasn’t really open this time of year, but there were a few people there. We hadn’t exchanged any money yet, as it was barely 730 am, and nothing was open at the airport. After talking to a man inside who couldn’t help us, we went back to the car to try and find a phone number of the rental company, so maybe we could call a wrecker to change the tire. The rental agreement didn’t even have a local number on it.
We stood outside, quietly contemplating what to do, when out of nowhere, our hero arrived. A young kid, about 20 years old came out of the hotel, dressed as a waiter or bellhop, and walked up to us.
“I heard you have a flat. Maybe I can help you.” We immediately noticed his “accent”. His name was Tim, and he was an exchange student from of all places, Minneapolis. An American!! Wow!! We chatted it up a bit and found out immediately he had extensive knowledge of European autos. When we told him there was no jack he said, and I quote, “did you check the engine compartment?” Was he serious? The engine compartment? He told us some smaller cars have the jacks bolted to the firewall near the master cylinder. He wasn’t kidding. We opened the hood, and there it was. Not a single person in America experiencing a flat tire would ever look under the hood, because, well, that’s NOT where the jack is.
Half an hour later we were on our way. Our tire was changed, and we thanked our “mechanic” friend Tim from Minneapolis. We learned that day two things; older isn’t always smarter, and help comes when you least expect it. Thank you, Tim.
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