BRUNSWICK, GA

Sunday, January 27, 2019. It was around 4 pm when I entered Brunswick city limits. Being unfamiliar with the area, I chose to make camp at Altamaha Regional Park for the night. The park was quiet and secluded. I was the ONLY person camping there that day. After 6 pm I literally had the entire park to myself. (Well, I had to share it with the mosquitoes, owls and feral hogs, but I was the only human there!).

Some people do not like solitude. I think they may confuse it with isolation. I’m not one of those people. I think solitude is therapeutic. So, for me this place was soothing. And a little bit spooky.

It was dark by the time I finished setting up camp. I brought my dinner (which that night consisted of tuna and crackers, a ginger ale, and some chocolate chip cookies) to the river and sat in a swinging chair while I ate. Then I walked out to the fishing dock and nearly shit myself when a catfish splashed right next to where I was standing!

Okay, maybe I was a little uncomfortable out there by myself. I mean, this place looked just like an episode of The Walking Dead! With every rustle of the trees I expected to see flesh eating zombies emerging from the woods with outstretched hands, dragging themselves toward me!!

After I’d sufficiently scared the hell out of myself out I decided to hit the shower then hit the sack. I wanted to be at the auto shop early in the morning so I could get my car repaired and get back on the road.

Monday, January 28, 2019. I found an import auto shop in downtown Brunswick on Google and pulled up shortly after they’d opened for the day. I knew I had a vacuum leak. I just didn’t know where it was coming from. I had hoped it was just a worn out seal but it turned out I needed a new valve cover. BMW maintenance can be a little pricey but these people were downright outrageous! They quoted me $500 for the part, $500 for the labor, then suggested an additional $500 worth of work that I might as well “get done while I’m at it”! $1500! They’re f#@king crazy! I was f#@king pissed! And frankly, disgusted that they would try to take advantage of my situation and fleece me! But you know what? Not all people are made of the same moral fiber you are. Some people are trustworthy and some people are not. (That’s a sad fact of life that I will encounter again while I’m in Brunswick.)

Now I had to weigh my options. I needed some time to think so I went for a walk. The weather was perfect and Downtown Brunswick looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. I stopped inside a coffee shop called Maggie Mae’s and ordered a sweet tea and started looking online for car parts.

I found my part on rockauto.com for $243! Now I just needed a reasonable mechanic to install it. It was beginning to look like I might be in Brunswick for a few days.

As fate would have it, I met an old man later that day who knew of a mechanic that could probably help me out.

Mr. Ty, as he was affectionally known around town, had been a Brunswick fixture for over 50 years. He was 78, a widower, and from what I’ve been told, a good man who was always helping others. We had both just walked out of the grocery store when he remarked on how nice the weather was. I concurred, and before I knew it we had been standing in the lot talking for 15 minutes. We were having a pleasant enough conversation although I couldn’t help but notice what was either sadness or loneliness in the man’s eyes. So I was happy to talk to him for as long as he needed. We must have stood outside for an hour, talking about everything under the sun! Then he told me his mechanic worked right around the corner, about two miles away. He offered to drive there so I could follow in my car.

Three days later I would learn that Mr. Ty would tragically die in a car accident the very same evening we met. First responders said it appeared he was driving himself to the hospital (like maybe he knew something was wrong) but suffered a heart attack on the way and hit a telephone pole. Supposedly he had just come from visiting his daughter and granddaughter. At least he got to see them before he went.

I like to think Mr. Ty was an angel dispatched to me from God for one last good deed on earth before being called back to his eternal home.

Thank you for spending some time with me, good sir. May you Rest In Peace.

The mechanic was a local gentleman named Phil. I told him I would be able to supply the valve cover if he could install it for me when it arrived. We agreed on a fee $150 for the job. I would just need to stick around until Friday, when the part was due to arrive.

That worked for me. It would give me a chance to possibly find some odd jobs to help recoup some of the money I’d spent. No sense sitting on my ass for a week when I could be doing something productive!

Work would prove to be elusive the first two days, but eventually I found something. I was in good spirits. Things were starting to look up!

Boy, would that change in the blink of an eye.

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