Warm words cut through the cold winter

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My wife Bonnie and I spent a very happy summer 2019 in Pinedale. We had a subscription

to the “Roundup” and enjoyed your commentary columns. We thought you

might appreciate this story from Pinedale’s history.

This from Ted Straub, a gentleman we met recently at a promotion ceremony for one

of the cadets I taught in CHSMCJROTC, CHURCLAND HIGH SCHOOL, Portsmouth,

Va., 1981 to 2001. Ted picked up our relation to Pinedale off my FaceBook page entries.

He wrote:

“Small world story.

“Back in the mid-90s I spent a week in Pinedale after the van I was driving home to

PA from Idaho Falls burnt a valve. With a conventional carburetor, I neglected to get

the van tuned for the higher altitudes during my three-month stay in Idaho Falls, and it

finally caught up with me in the climb over the mountains. Limped into Pinedale with

severe knocking and checked in with what I believe was the town’s only mechanic.

Then walked to the other end of town and checked into the only motel.

“During the week I was stranded there on foot, I came to know many people at the

businesses I visited for amusement and sustenance. The motel owners took an interest

in me and gave me a bottle of wine (Mateus) then, as it was approaching Christmas,

invited me to spend Christmas with them if I was still stranded on the holiday!

“The mechanic had to throw in the towel and disabled the cylinder. I then had a day

and a half to get home for Christmas, so I drove non-stop from Pinedale to Philadelphia

on seven cylinders. I was hallucinating heading east on the Pennsylvania turnpike on

Christmas morning, but I made it. In the dead of winter, Pinedale was a very warm

place!”