Maintenance and repair

by Brad Nelson

I had to take the love of my life in for some warranty work the other day. I had to leave her there. “Two or three days,” they said. But then after a long overnight stay, they released her to come home. The warranty, we were told, had expired about 15 years before. They’ll send us a bill. She mentioned that my behavior had improved since the first time I took her to a hospital.

That was early February in 1970, when our first child was born. We had done the “pre-register” thing, and before we left the house at about 1:30 a.m., I had called to let them know we were coming right in. It seems I drove the red truck up on the lawn and parked across the sidewalk near the front door of the American Fork, Utah, hospital. I then picked my very expectant wife up in my arms and kicked the front door of the hospital open. We were greeted by cold, shiny clean hallways. but not a soul was there to be found. In my usual polite and thoughtful manner, I bellowed out, “Where in the hell is everybody?” Then we got people’s attention. Three faces appeared from three different doorways, then disappeared, and then re-appeared, each pushing a wheelchair at a high rate of speed. The survivor of the ensuing collision had me place her in the wheelchair, and they took her away. I was directed to a desk, handed a stack of papers at least 3 inches tall and told that each and every one needed my signature. My handwriting has never been the same. To this day I have no recollection of when I moved the truck off of the hospital lawn.

In about 1978, I encouraged her towards an adventure in emergency medicine. She became an EMT (emergency medical technician). She has become more involved in emergency medicine over the years; she now does a lot of coaching. I sat as one of her students in the EMT class in 1993. A “standard” joke in our happy home is that whenever I come home wounded I can count on my own private live-in emergency room to be out teaching or manning an ambulance somewhere.

I’ve concluded over the years that it takes a very special lady to be the wife of a hay hauler. Or at least of this hay hauler. About 1976, Bill Chidester and I had a time-consuming delay on the downhill side of Cabbage Mountain just east of Pendleton, Oregon. By the time we had found a place to buy airline parts, returned to the trailer and installed same and led the trailer the rest of the way off the mountain, we elected to call for a ride home. The alternative was that we would spend Christmas in a strange town sharing each other’s company some 400 miles from our families. Elli came for us, driving the only car she ever really “wanted,” a 1971 AMC Javelin. As I drove home, I discovered that the storm that caused our difficulties on Cabbage had ice-coated the roads from Pendleton almost back to Ontario, Oregon. I was disgusted with myself for having put her in the position of driving in that kind of danger. From the back seat came a grumbling noise from Bill about the seat being not fit for man or beast. I remember telling him to shut up. Two days after Christmas, we completed the ill-fated load on bare and dry roads. It figures.

I left for Portland one trip, first making a phone call to her best friend. Elli was down with the flu, and I couldn’t get out of my load schedule. The friend promised to be right over and take care of her buddy. She did. The flu eventually went away and rather than be hurt to have been left home with the kids while sick in bed, she thanked me for chasing Peggy over to help her.

The few times I got to take her with me were very special occasions. Somehow she knew of my love for the wide open spaces and for heavy trucks. Rather than being jealous of these interests, she supported me in what I loved to do. I did my best to return the favor, supporting her in her EMT work, and with her painting.

One of my sons told of being razzed by some fellows for being so “nice” to his wife. They said he made them look bad, and they wanted him to knock it off. The boy replied that he liked his wife more than all of them. He also liked the way his mom treated his dad, and he thought he knew well the reason why and thought maybe it would work under his roof the same way.

It’s been a good many years. They’ve been good years. She gladly accepted a gas barbecue as a Mother’s Day gift. Why, she even let me have the payment book. It’s well worth a few repairs now and again.

One of my associates confided in me that as a young man he had a “soulmate” relationship with a young lady. This Heaven-on-Earth relationship ended and shattered my friend’s very existence when his soulmate was kidnapped and murdered.

At my house, the “I love you’s” flow more freely now and somehow with more meaning. PD