I was in a back booth at the Lake View Inn, ready to tuck into a bowl of chili, a grilled cheese and a visit with my buddy Drew Sanders, an over-the-road trucker home for a week. Then my phone pinged. Leave it to my good friend Chuck Larson to interrupt an ideal Saturday lunch. I wiped my greasy fingers and, with some hesitation, answered.
“Hey, would you be willing…” This is always Chuck’s lead line when he needs a favor “…to meet me out on highway 49?,” Chuck asked. “I have a flat tire.”
“You have forgotten how to change a flat?” I asked.
“A flat on the boat trailer,” Chuck replied. “And I’m afraid I’m unprepared. I don’t have the right lug wrench. And there may be a few other issues.”
Drew was up for a rescue mission and offered to drive. “I think I’ve got everything we’ll need,” he said as we pushed away from the table.
We found Chuck on the gravel shoulder, Alumacraft and trailer listing to starboard towards the ditch. Holding a metric lug wrench next to a trailer with SAE nuts, Chuck couldn’t even get started changing the flat.
“Here’s my other problem,” Chuck said. “The jack for the truck fits under the trailer axle at home, but it won’t when the tire is flat.”
Now, Drew lives by the old Scout motto: Be Prepared. “No worries,” he said as he opened the cap and crawled into the bed of his pickup truck. “I’ve got my towing tote.” He slid out a plastic tote and reached for a battery-powered impact wrench as well as a rack of sockets. Next was a compact floor jack. And finally, a simple square of plywood.
“Now Chuck, if you’ve kept your spare aired up we are in business,” Drew said. “Put the plywood under the jack so it won’t sink into the soft ground.”
Chuck was about to get down to work on the lug nuts. “Wait a sec,” Drew said. And he pulled a big square of thick cardboard out of his truck. “Lay this on the ground. Sure beats kneeling on gravel.”
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While Chuck worked on his wheel, I took a look in Drew’s “be prepared” tote. He had two wheel-bearing kits, a big blue Channellock and some other hand tools, duct tape, a roll of trailer-light wire and an LED lantern.
“When you live on the road, downtime on the shoulder is lost wages,” Drew said. “And you can bet when you get a flat, it’s going to be dark and some place inconvenient. If I’m pulling the boat or the camper, I just throw this in the truck and I’m ready for anything.”
Once Chuck got his wheel changed, I pulled him over and showed him Drew’s kit.
“I’ve got most of this at home, just not organized,” I said. “But I’m going to put together my own trailer kit.”
“That’s a great idea,” Chuck said. “The next time I get a flat, Drew might be out of town. But you’re usually around.”
