A Cold Winter

A young fellow was driving by the farm house of an older gentleman in Barnardsville, N.C. and suddenly his tire went flat. He pulled partially onto the shoulder of the road and after a few moments of rattling around in the trunk of the ‘62 Impala he started to lift the corner of the car with a bumper jack.

The offending tire was on the right rear and each time he would get the wheel almost high enough to remove it the Chevy would ease back just enough to partially fall off the bumper jack leaving it attached to the bumper at about a 45 degree angle. Since the car was on a sharp incline the frustrated, and now sweaty and dirty, young man decided he would have to “scotch” the left rear tire to prevent the repeat of his previous attempts to jack the car up enough to remove the flat and install the spare.

He started to look around and could not find any stone larger than about fist size, much too small to stop a “led sled” on a steep incline. He surveyed the area and noticed an old man sitting on the porch near where he had stopped. He called out to the old man, “Hey, is there a rock around here big enough to “scotch” my wheel so I can get this @#$%$## flat changed?”

The old man, in a calm voice replied, “Nope. It got bad cold last winter for two weeks and we burnt every one on the place”. The young fellow just looked at him for a while like a calf looking at a new gate, and said nothing. What do you say to a statement like that? The old man didn’t utter another word, never smiled.

Finally after a long trip across a barbed wire fence, across a pasture, and into the creek and back again, a suitable rock was found and the operation was complete.

Royce