Back in the mid-1990s, after my husband, Jack, retired, I decided to start a small business. I picked wildflowers and sold them to local florists in neighboring towns.
We lived in a rambling, two-story wood frame house, surrounded by farmland, about five miles from Merrill, Iowa, then our home. Almost everything I picked came from nearby. The cattails came from creek land about a quarter-mile away. I scooped fallen buckeyes by the thousands that dropped from trees in a nearby park. The yarrow came from my neighbors’ pastures. I found the mare’s tails in a swampy field about 10 miles away. I collected lotus pods from the shallows of Brown’s Lake, about 25 miles away. Sometimes my son, Terry, sent okra from his Nebraska garden. Jack and I drove our goods to market about every week or two.
One autumn day, Jack and I loaded the trunk and back seat of our red, 1994 Plymouth Horizon to the gills. Jack got behind the wheel and turned the ignition. Nothing. The car wouldn’t start.
Jack and I looked at one another. “That’s never happened before,” I said. The car was only a couple of years old. It never gave us an ounce of trouble. Jack gave it another try. Still nothing. We shook our heads and headed back into the house.
In the kitchen, I smelled something funny. “Smells like gas,” I said. Jack hurried to the stove. One of the burners was on. He checked under it. “The pilot light’s off,” he said.
We threw open all the windows and the door and aired the place out. I looked at Jack, and he at me. Without a word, we each knew what the other was thinking. Had we turned on the stove or lit a match, the leaking gas would have caused an explosion.
Outside, our car still sat, loaded with goods. “Want to try starting the car again?” I asked, after the fumes had at last disappeared.
“I guess so,” Jack said.
We walked out the door and climbed in the car. Jack turned the ignition. The Horizon started up immediately. As long as we had that car, it never stalled again.
