Jump

The trouble with being away from home for weeks at a time to escape Michigan’s winter is, well, Michigan’s winter. We returned earlier this week to find everything in order, except a dead Beast – our RV motorhome – parked outside since the end of January. The poor creature’s battery was kaput.

Totally mea culpa, since I should have asked our home-checker/dear friend Kelly to start it weekly while we were gone. The plants survived, our basement was dry, but the RV was D-E-D.

Aside: I must say, my Mustang Sal cranked right up this week even though she also hadn’t been started since before we left. But the pony was in the garage covered up with a horse blanket. At 60-plus, we can’t take any chances with the old girl. (Yes, I’m still talking about the car.)

So, Thursday morning I called Good Sam Roadside Assistance, the company we pay annually to handle this sort of thing. Like AAA for recreational vehicles. We’ve used them before with good results.

In fact, Good Sam is rated No. 1 by consumers. Perhaps that review was strictly from those who blew a tire or broke down and needed to be towed.

Not us. We required a lifeless, 10-year-old, 24-foot-long house on wheels to be revived in the driveway.

The customer service representative on the phone took my information and said she would dispatch a driver ASAP. “Within the hour, Mrs. Moon,” she added cheerfully.

Mrs. Moon? Now I’ve been called a lot of things, but Mrs. Moon isn’t one of them. That should have been a sure sign of things to come.

Almost immediately, I received a text from Good Sam that someone from B&R Auto Repair and Towing would arrive within the hour.

I now suspect that B&R stands for “Beaters and Rattletraps.”

My phone rang and a creepy, childlike voice said, “Mrs. Moon, please go outside and look for a green Volvo in your driveway.”

“This isn’t Mrs. Moon,” I started to say, before my stellar journalistic skills engaged. Who? What? When? Where? Why? Huh?

“Well, I certainly hope you’re joking,” I said to the pre-pubescent sociopath, who identified himself as Eyad.

I heard “Eyore” because I am slightly more vintage than a caged Mustang.

Still on the line, I walked outside. Lo and behold, there was indeed a green Volvo sedan in my driveway. Circa 1990. I laughed out loud. We were being punked.

An older gentleman emerged, introduced himself as Mike and shook my hand with vigor. He reminded me of Mr. Johnson, the scene-stealing school custodian on ABC’s sitcom “Abbott Elementary.” Nice enough, somewhat gruff and a bit odd.

In the show, Mr. Johnson (played by William Stanford Davis) is a conspiracy theorist who doesn’t believe in the moon, counts Dorothy Hamill among his ex-lovers and claims he might be an Olympic athlete. And we don’t know his first name. Just Mr. Johnson.

Within minutes, Mr. Mike hooked up $10.99 Amazon jumper cables from his rust-bucket beater to our 11,000-pound Mercedes Sprinter Winnebago ERA.

I politely asked if he thought this was going to work.

“Oh yeah, just give it a little bit of time, Mrs. Moon. She’ll be fine,” he said.

While we waited for the Beast to be resurrected and Rebecca sat in the driver’s seat anxious to get back inside to her crossword puzzle, Mike and I chatted about the weather, movies and his interesting life.

Of course, we did.

(That previous line was for my oldest sister who quite often teases me for talking to strangers and finding out their deep dark secrets. Hazards of the job, Lois Lane. Even in retirement.)

Turns out, Mike is a 70-year-old UAW Ford retiree who worked more than three decades at the carmaker, starting at the River Rouge Complex in Dearborn, Michigan, and ending his career at the Wixom Assembly Plant.

Ford Motor Co. closed Wixom in 2007, after 50 years in operation. At the time, it was Ford’s largest assembly plant in the United States. At its peak in the 1980s, they employed nearly 4,000 workers. Good-paying jobs.

What’s your local, I asked? As a former UAW International staffer who worked in public relations and lived to tell about it, I’m still curious to see if the union’s retirees know their local union number. Some do. Most don’t. Doesn’t matter.

“It’s Local 237, I think. Yeah,” Mike said.

Mike grew up on Detroit’s northwest side, dropped out after middle school, later got his GED and then attended college before hiring in at Ford. I asked him why he was still working.

“I’ve got to keep busy,” Mike said, adding that he was one of three brothers still alive out of 10 siblings. “One’s autistic, and the other one is, well, never mind about him. The rest are dead like your battery.”

Awkward silence.

I offered Mike something to drink. Coffee? Water? Pop?

“No, thanks,” he said. “You know, that reminds me of something about a famous guy opening a restaurant in Birmingham.”

What? OK, here it comes.

“You know that movie ‘Ted’ about a guy and little talking animals or something?” he asked.

“Ted Lasso,” I guessed?

“No. Not him. The one who played the dude whose childhood wish brings his teddy bear friend come to life. He’s got a bunch of brothers,” Mike said.

You mean “Marky Mark” formerly of New Kids on the Block, I guessed?

“Yeah, that’s him,” Mike said, pleased that I had passed his celeb Q&A.

I have no idea what, if any, restaurant Mark Wahlberg is opening in Birmingham. Might be in Alabama.

For over an hour, Mike worked tirelessly to start that Beast. Around noon, he determined that, “We’re gonna need a bigger car” to jump this thing.

Right. By this time, Rebecca had nodded off in the passenger seat.

We said our goodbyes, and Mike left, frustrated and no doubt recalculating what he could have done differently. (Call AAA, maybe?)

So, again I called Good Sam Roadside Assistance, and within 20 minutes they had dispatched a new driver. This time one with a black and white American-made beater bearing dents, rust and a very bad paint job. It looked like it had been doused in an Oreo Cookie Blizzard from DQ.

This guy’s name was Antoine from Talley Auto Rescue in Pontiac. He owns the place. Low overhead, obviously. He pulled out a Super Start portable battery charger about the size of a 1970s boom box and connected it to the RV. It worked like a charm. He was finished in 10 minutes.

“Let her run for at least a half hour, take her for a spin, and she’ll be fine,” Antoine said.

I assumed he was still talking about the Sprinter and not Reb, who was now sound asleep under a Snoopy towel on the bench seat at the back of the RV.

Before Antoine left, we gave him bottled water and cookies.

Waving as he pulled away, I wondered why they called it “Good Sam Roadside Assistance” anyway.

There’s not much good to say about Sam, but I sure did like Mike and Antoine.