On the morning after Christmas, a mile shy of Chehalis, Washington, my serpentine belt took a holiday.

I didn't know I had a serpentine belt. I didn't know what I had until I walked into Les Schwab with the rubber misfit dangling from my fist and a guy behind the counter called out, "Hey, your serpentine belt!"

Like they were college roommates or something.

What I quickly figured out, however, was that my van and my family weren't going anywhere without it, least of all 90 miles up the road to grandmother's house.

When that belt spun off and my dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree, I stumbled onto a festive holiday fact:

When almost everyone is traveling, almost no one -- much less a mechanic -- is hanging out in Chehalis.

A convenient AAA towing outfit was parked by the freeway exit, but when I asked them to look at my van, they said, "Ho! Ho! Ho! Tuesday at the earliest."

Trudging out of the AAA garage, I saw the serpentine belt hanging beneath the car. But I had no idea it was responsible for the shutdown of the van's cooling system, alternator and power steering.

Desperate to avoid eye contact with my wife, I searched the horizon for Plan B.

When what to my wondrous eye should appear but the local Les Schwab store.

Tire firma in the Northwest.

An engine shop? Hardly. But I was looking for any port in the storm.

After Brent Novak, Les Schwab's assistant manager, ID'd the ol' serpentine, he gave me the name of three garages that might get me back on the road.

The first two were closed, the third over the hill and far away. Panic was gaining on me. I called my parents and suggested they turn down the heat on the Christmas goose. We might be dead meat.

At that moment, a guy named Ray Morgan came sprinting out of Les Schwab. Novak had asked him to stick his head under my hood and see what he came up with.

"Water pump," he said.

I'm thinking dinner at the Country Kitchen and a weekend at the Super Eight. Morgan? He's running back inside the tire store and calling the nearest auto-parts store, seeing if they have a new pump in stock.

Then he's on the phone, scrambling all over the Yellow Pages for an idle mechanic. As he keeps striking out, Morgan finally says, "You know, we don't do engine work ... but maybe I can ask Brent to let me work on your van during my lunch hour."

I'm speechless. You can't fake that kind of neighborliness. And in the week before Christmas, I bumped into too many store clerks and mall rats who didn't even try.

Ray Morgan didn't know me; nor did he have any reason to think he'd ever see me again. And yet, here he was, determined to take my burden on his shoulders.

As it turned out, we didn't ruin Morgan's lunch. He finally got hold of Jeff Todd at Centralia Shell, who said he could heal the van if we got the old gray mare to him by 1 o'clock. The AAA tow truck made it with 20 minutes to spare and Todd had us back on the road to grandma's in an hour.

"This could have been worse," I told my son as we waited for the tow truck. "This could have happened in the middle of nowhere."

"This is the middle of nowhere, Dad," Michael said.

Perhaps. But when there's a Les Schwab Tire Store on the top of the next hill, you can breathe a little easier, assured that someone -- often someone you've never met -- will pick you up, dust you off and send you mercifully on your way.

 Steve Duin

January 5, 1999

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