there when you need it

Budd nuts. Too much wise crack potential to even go there. But, really, budd nuts, budd lug nuts. These are the specialized nuts that hold on dual truck tires on, say, a dump truck. For a truck mechanic, this is as easy as buttering toast and is done as often. To me, it's new stuff.

I'm starting my fixing-the-Mack-frame project by first taking off the tires on one side. Easy. Sure. I stare at the wheel...how do I get those big nuts off there? Big and deeply recessed.

I begin searching and experimenting with tools. Some won't reach, and those that do, well, they don't have near the beefiness needed to get those lug nuts to budge.

I get a breaker bar, a long six footer that I got from some where. It's got a unusual end on it, but it aughta do some damage. Then I see that I need an extension on the socket. Hmmn, there's this funny extension that I got from somewhere and threw in the scrap iron bin.

Retrieving it, I come back and begin staring at the two pieces in my hand. Then I realize the odd breaker bar end goes perfectly in the extension. Then I see that the extension isn't just an extension--the end of it is exactly sized for the lug nuts. I'm in business.

Slipping a 4 ft pipe over the 6 ft breaker bar, climbing up on the dump truck side and jumping up and down on the cheater bar (10 ft out and 150 lbs of me = 1500 ft lbs of torque on the lug nuts) and they squeal in protesting movement.

Without this special tool there would have been absolutely no way I could have gotten the wheels off. And then I remembered where I got that special tool: in the old garage of the house we bought in Walla Walla, Washington. I had kept this tool, even though I had no idea what it was for. About ten years I've had it, and tripped over it, and moved it around when it was in the way. Not knowing what it was for, but just that it must have been for something therefore I was going to keep it.

And, now it redeemed itself. I'm thinking about all the other things, and experiences, that, at the time, meant little to nothing but now were the keystone for something else. You never know. A smile, a rain storm, a chosen other way, a tool and it makes all the difference...as Frost pointed out much better than I.

I wonder what events and things in my here-and-now will be key for later chapter in my life. I try to keep my eyes and heart open wider not to miss it.