Acts of Kindness on a Southern Sojourn

My best guess is that it fell off the back of one of the campers racing toward a weekend on the Gulf of Mexico. I had seen several such caravans in the preceding hours: chairs, bicycles, umbrellas and other bric-a-brac that had no assigned storage space, and so were tied or bungee-corded to the vehicle. If you hit enough bumps and don’t inspect your lashings every time you take a break from the road, something will inevitably come loose.

The ’something’ was an aluminum beach chair; the kind you can buy at Ocean State Job Lot for ten bucks. The chair had already been struck at least once; likely by a high-riding SUV or truck which crushed and bent it. In the instant I saw the object before our car, too, ran over it, I remember the gaudy colored plastic mesh that formed the seat and back of the chair.

A Prius rides very low to the ground

Our vehicle, though, is a Prius; and part of the design of the Prius that adds to its well-deserved fuel-sipping reputation is that it rides lower to the ground than those ubiquitous SUVs and pickups. When one of our tires passed over the debris, one or more pieces of aluminum obeyed the laws of physics and angled upward, snagging the undercarriage of our car. Betty and I heard the crunch but assumed we had merely further flattened the carcass.

Fifteen seconds later, our assumption was proven wrong. HYBRID DRIVE COMPROMISED – PULL OVER IMMEDIATELY AND SEEK ASSISTANCE appeared on the Prius’ display. We quickly did so, guiding our vehicle to the breakdown lane. Getting out of the car, we discovered a clear liquid was puddling underneath it.

Thus began eight days of discovering that there is a stunning amount of kindness in this world.

We were on that road – Interstate 59 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi – because, a year earlier, I had accepted an invitation from the Deep South Region of National Garden Clubs to be the speaker at the Friday luncheon of their annual convention, to be held in New Orleans. I would present ‘Gardening Is Murder’ to an audience where few (if any) of the attendees knew of me or my books. I was being presented with an opportunity to reach 150 prospective readers by delivering a humorous talk about gardening from a spouse’s point of view.

Our 1526-mile drive. We almost made it.

It is 1526 miles from Medfield, Massachusetts to New Orleans (22 hours and 48 minutes of driving, according to Google Maps) and Jet Blue will get you there in 3 hours and 40 minutes. But, in addition to providing laughter coupled with a modicum of horticulture to a receptive audience, my mission was also to sell books. The cost of separately shipping books, displays, and banners would make the trip economically impractical. With a vehicle that averaged 64 miles per gallon though, I could make the trip within the travel stipend agreed to by the convention organizers.

Betty made it clear there was no way I going to make the journey alone. We would share driving duties; leaving our home early on Wednesday, stopping overnight in Tennessee, and arriving in New Orleans in time for a 4 p.m. reception on Thursday.  It was a good plan and, but for that beach chair, we would have made it with an hour to spare.

A call to AAA got us a tow to Toyota of Hattiesburg. I had already been on the phone with one of the dealership’s service advisors, Michael Metzger. He quickly understood our predicament and offered to intercede to help with a car rental. Ordinarily, such a task would be easy; but this was the beginning of spring break for area colleges and all cars in the region were spoken for. Through a series of direct calls to local agencies rather than through impersonal call centers, he found a vehicle we could have for two days; but must be returned to Hattiesburg by noon Saturday. Once our Prius was at the dealership, Mike also got us to the car rental agency ten minutes before its 5 p.m. closing time.

The second kindness came from the organizers of the convention, and especially from Convention Co-chair Elizabeth McDougald, who had hired me a year earlier. We arrived after 7 p.m. – long after that reception and also as dessert was being served at the evening awards dinner.  We were quietly seated and fed, our room key already in our hand. The following morning as I set up my books display, I found everyone at the conference knew of our on-the-road travails; a general announcement had been made. It would not be an overstatement to say more than a hundred people said they were glad me made it to the convention and wished us a safe return home.

We were left with a dilemma, however. Our Prius had been thoroughly examined early Friday morning. The lawn chair had damaged our radiator, A/C coolant line, fans, and fan housings. None of these were in-stock parts; all had been ordered but would not arrive until at least Monday. Repairs and road testing would push our departure to Tuesday at the earliest - possibly until Wednesday - and Thursday if additional problems were found. Our rental car had a hard return time of Saturday at noon. We could be stuck in a hotel room in Hattiesburg with no means of transportation for at least four days; possibly six.

Better this than five days in a
Hattiesburg motel room

Thus came the third kindness. While I delivered my lunch presentation, Elizabeth McDougald’s husband, Glenn, researched travel options. By 3 p.m., Betty and I had seats on a Jet Blue flight back to Boston leaving that evening. Elizabeth offered to gather and store all the books and other paraphernalia we would be unable to take with us on the flight. The McDougalds also said they would arrange for the return of our rental car.

Once at the airport, we emailed our neighbor, Jane Cobb, who was performing cat-sitting duties, to let her know we were arriving home a day early and so she need not give Abigail her morning feeding. Ten minutes later, our cell phone rang asking what time out plane landed at Logan Airport and how did we plan to get home? We said we would take a taxi because of the post-midnight arrival. Jane replied she would meet us outside baggage claim and would not take ‘no’ for an answer.

On Monday morning, Mike Metzger let us know the parts were in hand and a body shop was already straightening out housing brackets. Mike suggested our Prius could be ready as early as Tuesday afternoon. I have never known a repair to go so quickly. We had assumed we would fly into New Orleans, use an Uber to collect our stranded belongings from the McDougalds, and then continue in the Uber to Hattiesburg at some astronomical price.

An act of kindness

Instead, we had yet additional acts of kindness. If we could fly into Mobile, Alabama, instead of New Orleans, Elizabeth and Glenn would meet us at that airport with our peripatetic possessions and drop us off in Hattiesburg on their way back to New Orleans. A quick look at a map showed Hattiesburg is ‘on the way’ to New Orleans from Mobile in the same way Albany is on the way from Boston to New York City. We gratefully agreed to the offer.

Our final hurdle: 20 minutes to go 
3600 feet (2/3 of a mile)

More kindnesses: Jane Cobb’s spouse, Dennis Amtower, drove us to Logan for an 8:00 a.m. flight (for which you leave Medfield at 5:45 a.m. to cope with morning rush hour traffic and TSA inspection). We made our connection in Charlotte – a 3600-foot sprint – with just minutes to spare and arrived in Mobile just after noon. Mike Metzger had our car prepped and ready when the McDougalds dropped us off in Hattiesburg. We were on our way back to New England at 2:30 p.m.

So many things could have gone wrong along the way. But they didn’t. And, thanks to a group of people – most of whom we had never met before last week – what could have been an unmitigated disaster was instead only a time-consuming (albeit expensive) mishap. I have three more speaking ‘road trips’ on my schedule this Spring, with destinations in South Carolina, Illinois and Michigan.

There are three more 'road trips' 
scheduled this Spring.

In hindsight, at 1500+ miles each way, New Orleans was probably too far to drive. Illinois will almost be certainly done by air, and I will figure out a way to ship books ahead of schedule. But Myrtle Beach is an (almost) leisurely 850 miles and Michigan (819 miles) features a dual speaking engagement with me at noon and Betty at 2 p.m.

Though I have lived 'up north'  for almost all of my adult life, I am a son of the South, and this trip reinforced the notion there is something both real and very special about 'Southern Hospitality'. No matter how the rest of this speaking season goes, I will forever remember the kindness we discovered on our sojourn to New Orleans.