We desperately required help in late October 1968. Age 16, I drove a 1967 Jeepster on a logging road near the Quebec border when disaster struck. Like other teens who recklessly equate mud puddles with green traffic lights, I eyed a large puddle and stepped on the accelerator.
Traveling at 35 mph, the Jeep plowed through the water, spraying it onto the hood, windshield and hot engine block. Instantly, the motor stalled. My first grouse hunting trip with friends had hit its first obstacle 30 miles from Jackman.
Two high-school buddies, Fred and Paul, popped the hood and were engulfed in a plume of steam. Fred removed the distributor cap, mopped its inside with a handkerchief and stated with conviction, “Now that the cap is dry, the engine will start.”
He may have been proven correct had Paul not disconnected eight spark plug wires without noting the firing order. Reconnecting wires by guesswork was futile; the engine refused to start. For two hours, we sat by the roadside, distraught by our failure to foresee trouble.
Fred — a brilliant, well-read student — entertained us with Mark Twain quotes, including one that seemingly applied exclusively to me: “That would have been foresight, whereas hindsight is my specialty.”
Shortly before sunset, Scott Paper Co. lumberjack Bernard Bean materialized from a shroud of ground fog. Bean, who’d been bird hunting, placed four dead grouse on the ground, leaned an empty shotgun against a tree, studied the Jeep’s wheels, and crawled under the front end. “You musta hit a boulder in the washout,” he muttered, “a tie-rod’s busted.”
Tie-rods, the woodsman explained, connect wheels to the steering and suspension components. Reading our blank faces, Bean dumbed down his message. “You can’t steer a vehicle with a broken tie-rod,” he grumbled, barely hiding his disdain. He collected the bird carcasses and shotgun, shook his head, and walked away. Paul, a former altar boy, made the sign of the cross and whispered, “Lord, have mercy.”
Fifteen minutes later Bean returned carrying a flashlight and a metal coat hanger, which he ingeniously reconfigured to reattach the broken tie-rod to the wheel’s steering arm. “It might get you home safely, if it doesn’t break,” he cautioned. “Drive slowly.” Unable to resolve the spark plugs’ firing order, he produced another minor miracle by fetching an auto mechanic camping at nearby Rock Pond. The mechanic tinkered with the wires and had the engine humming within minutes.
That evening, in a remote log cabin on the shores of Spencer Lake, we celebrated our good fortune by dining on three sauteed grouse breasts, tart wild cranberry sauce, hen-of-the-woods mushrooms and wild rice — courtesy of Mr. Bean. Our luck, though, was short lived.
After dinner, Fred retired to the Jeep to listen to a French-speaking radio station, the only broadcast signal the vehicle received. The Quebec station played Edith Piaf’s greatest hits, including “Non, Je ne regrette rien,” a love song translated as “No, I regret nothing.” Lulled to sleep by her beautiful voice, Fred forgot to turn off the ignition key. By morning, the battery was dead.
Exasperated, I hustled 3 miles in 20-degree air to the main log-hauling road. “Do you have jumper cables?” I asked several motorists. “Sorry,” was the common response, “I only carry boosters in winter.”
Intrigued by the faint smell of wood smoke I followed it 200 yards to a 1944 World War II German prisoner of war camp. There, a bearded man was splitting firewood in a white union suit and wooden Dutch clogs. The odd-looking fellow had established residence in an abandoned POW shack.
“What can I do fer ya?” the hermit asked, as smoke from a hand-rolled cigarette curled past his furrowed forehead. “The battery in my Jeep is dead,” I stammered. “Lemme see what I can do after breakfast,” he replied. “Bob Wagg’s my name.” (A decade later Wagg would be the subject of the award-winning documentary “ Dead River Rough Cut,” the No. 1 requested film of Maine State Prison inmates.)
Two open screenless windows in his sweltering hovel did little to expel heat radiating from a potbelly stove. Wagg offered me a biscuit dunked in molasses, which I politely ate, though a dozen flies stuck to the molasses jar made swallowing difficult.
Leaning out a window, the hermit whistled loudly. On cue, three gray jays landed on a windowsill and pecked at a biscuit. The friendly birds, he explained, were reincarnated spirits of deceased woodsmen and river drivers.
Wagg caught me eyeing a chamber pot half-full of yellow liquid but said nothing. Ten minutes later, he sprinkled its contents at the entrance of a root cellar about 30 feet from the shack. “Human pee,” the hermit proclaimed, “discourages coons and porky-pines from eating my winter supply of carrots, potatoes, onions and apples.”
After breakfasting on Postum and a stale biscuit I sat beside Wagg in a motorized buggy that resembled NASA’s first lunar exploration vehicle. The contraption bounced over large pine roots before stopping alongside the Jeep. I asked if he’d forgotten jumper cables since none were visible. “I don’t have any,” the hermit replied, “but I have an idea.” Entering the woods behind an outhouse he returned dragging telephone wire that in the 1940s facilitated communication among logging bosses in cabins dotting the shoreline. He cut two 8-foot sections of wire and attached one to the negative terminal of each battery; the other wire connected the positive posts. “Be patient,” he said, “it’ll take a half-hour to transfer juice from my battery to yours.”
Biding time, Wagg grabbed a can of B&M baked beans strapped to the buggies running motor, carried it to the cab, retrieved a can opener, and removed the lid. Shoveling spoonfuls of steaming beans into his mouth, he pointed to a gap between his upper premolars. “It’s still a little sore,” he said. “Yesterday I yanked the tooth with a piece of copper wire.”
Thirty minutes later the Jeep roared to life with a sound as heavenly as those produced by an organist playing “Rock of Ages” during Sunday church service. “Let the engine idle for 20 minutes to recharge the battery,” Wagg yelled above two loud motors while disconnecting the telephone wires. “Stop in for a visit anytime,” he added, driving away.
To avoid additional calamities, we opted to return to central Maine. On Route 201 south in Bingham — about halfway home — the Jeep picked up speed down a hill, as if it had a mind of its own, like a workhorse increasing its pace after smelling the barn at the end of a difficult day. At the base of the hill, Somerset County Sheriff West stood beside his vintage 1960 Studebaker cruiser. Smelling an opportunity, West motioned me to pull over. Alarmed by the blaring siren and flashing red light, I stopped in front of Thompson’s Restaurant on Main Street.
The portly sheriff waddled to my open window, tapped a pencil on his star-shaped bronze law enforcement badge, and began counting. “One, two, three,” he said, waving the pencil in my face, “you boys leave your vehicle here and come with me.” We climbed into the cruiser’s backseat and cowered like dogs. In silence West drove on a convoluted network of gravel roads. Our anxiety peaked as houses disappeared one by one, replaced by miles of uninterrupted forest.
“Excuse me, officer, where are you taking us?” I asked feebly. The sheriff’s eyes fixated on the road, he deadpanned, “My house. The wife’s been nagging me for weeks to move our Home Clarion wood cookstove from the barn to the kitchen. I need three strong backs to lift the jeezly thing.”
The task completed, Mrs. West fed us baked beans, hot dogs, coleslaw, biscuits and apple pie. It was my second meal that day with biscuits and molasses, but I didn’t mention it. During the drive back to the Jeep, the sheriff chuckled as we took turns playing with the siren and red light. It was a fitting conclusion to an unforgettable Maine woods road trip.
Ron Joseph is a retired Maine wildlife biologist. He lives in central Maine.