The Miracle Belt

Here's a story I find hard to believe. A few years ago, I was driving from my home in Monterey to Santa Barbara on a Sunday evening.  It's about a four hour drive. Just a little past Santa Maria, which is about three hours from Monterey, a strange sound began emanating from under the hood, the water temperature rose sharply, the power steering failed, and I knew I was in trouble. When I looked under the hood, I saw that the fan belt had broken. (Now, I know this dates me because what we used to call a 'fan belt' is now called an 'alternator and power steering pump belt'. I still call it a fan belt.)

I called for a tow truck and while I waited a highway patrol car stopped and the officer asked if he could help and then waited with me for the truck to arrive.  

He asked where I was going and I told him that I was a consultant to non-profit organizations and that I had a meeting early the next morning at the Girl Scouts regional office in Santa Barbara. The officer told me rather shyly that he wished that he had a job that allowed him to help people. This seemed strange coming from a person who had stopped to help me along the way. But this isn't the unbelievable part.

Assault on Laguna

Written in August 2003

I'm writing this at 31,000 feet, on a flight from Road America to Laguna Seca. I'm on a covert scouting mission, preparing the ground for the main assault, headed by my wife, Susan, of a sofa-and-coffee-table-laden moving van and various motorized vehicles. We've committed ourselves to planting the family flag permanently on the Monterey Peninsula, in California on the outskirts of Laguna, by Labor Day. We have no exit strategy.

This past weekend, Susan and I had spent a final weekend at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, scootering around Road America, watching the SPEED GT cars from the cozy confines of Thunder Valley and the ChampCar race from the hill overlooking turn five. Nostalgia abounded.