Taken For A Ride By Bob And Old Blue
The Winter to Beat All Winters. That’s what they said. The Farmer’s Almanac, the local sky watchers and all the snow birds predicted this was going to be the kind of winter local legends are made of: bitter cold, pounds of snow, impassable roads.
In other words, something to look forward to, especially if your brand of happiness includes shovels, snowplows and fantasy rescue scenes of the snow-doomed Donner party of the Old West.
“We’d better lay in a supply of wood,” said my husband, glancing up from the newspaper forecast one late September morning. He had that Ward Bond wagon master look in his eye.
Like the leader of the old TV show, Wagon Train, his eyes scanned the horizon for snow clouds. Overhead, a 747 vapor trail (reasonable facsimile) confirmed his fears.
“Yep,” the armchair wagon master declared. “I think it’s time we lay in a larder of supplies.”
A larder. There’s something in the male spirit that’s just itching to rise to a cowboy occasion. You know, those moments in life that call for a strong rope, a fast horse, a pound of bacon and three cords of firewood.
The scarcity of those kinds of moments probably contributes more to male stress than all the corporate mergers and stock market failings combined. Every once in a while it would sure be nice to save the day on the back of a palomino.
“I’ll just check the classifieds and see who’s got wood,” he said, his voice full of the gravity of the situation. He had a point. You can never tell when electricity and natural gas will just up and quit on you. Always have a backup plan, that’s the cowboy code.
After some serious consideration, the wagon master decided to go with the mixed cords of Douglas fir and tamarack, chopped and delivered to our front door. He called the number. A guy named Bob answered.
“Yeah, I got all the Doug ya need and tam besides,” said Bob. “Have it there for ya Wensdee mornin’, for sure. You got my word on that one.”
A look of relief washed over my husband’s face. The wood was on its way, delivered by a mountain man who was on a first-name basis with trees. The larder would be secure.
The following Wednesday, Bob arrived with the wood. Some of the wood. Half, actually.
“Well, see,” said Bob, “I can only haul half the load in this truck. Gotta go back north and get the rest. Been havin’ trouble with the truck. Think ya could pay me now, ma’am?”
Ma’am? It sounded so folksy.
OK, I thought. Bob seems like a palomino kind of a guy. Why not? I wrote him a check for the full amount. He rode off into the sunset in his battered Chevy.
A few hours later, Bob called.
“Old truck broke down again, ma’am. Gotta do a little work on her. I’ll bring that load down tomorrow for sure.”
“No problem,” I said. “It can wait until tomorrow.”
And wait it did. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
In the beginning, the excuses were plausible. Old Blue, the name I had assigned Bob’s terminally ill truck, was fighting for her life. Any day now, she’d be up and running and just as soon as she was, Bob would deliver the rest of the wood.
Then, Old Blue got better but the world wood supply suddenly dwindled. Seems Bob had sold the rest of our firewood to someone else and now there were no more trees to cut. This, he suggested, was a plot by the Department of Wildlife to keep honest woodsmen out of work. About the time the trees grew back, Old Blue took a turn for the worse.
After the third promised delivery date came and went, I wrote Bob — and the wood — off. I figured whatever he was riding, it wasn’t a palomino.
The wagon master didn’t give up so easily. Applying the cowboy’s code, he appealed to the woodcutter’s sense of honor. Zero. He appealed to the woodcutter’s fear of litigation. Zip. He threatened to bring in his CIA contacts. Really.
“I’ll have that wood to ya by Christmas and that’s a promise,” said Bob.
It’s January. Remarkably, our larder is still secure. So far, the winter to beat all winters hasn’t shown up yet. Neither has Bob.