By Mike Donahue

Moapa Valley Progress

There’s something positive about knowing who your neighbors are and a major allure of rural living is not only knowing who lives next door but also believing that in an emergency you can count on that person for help if necessary.

We country people also like to think that it’s not just the immediate neighbors who would help in a crisis, but anyone down the road who shares our community, our way of life. Thankfully, that’s often the case. And just as thankfully, “down the road” is not always limited to the next street over or the next farm over. It just might mean the next neighborhood, or the next town, or even the next state.

Dennis Bracken is a AAA tow truck driver in California.

The AAA motto is “on the go versus tow” and the company proudly boasts its drivers are available anytime, anywhere to help with stalled cars, flat tires and other roadside problems. A couple of weeks ago, Bracken, who lives in the tiny rural desert town of Baker, CA, population about 900, give or take, demonstrated to a Southern Nevada family just how much that motto means to him.

On Tuesday, May 31, Glenda and Joe Maeder of Caliente loaded up their vehicles and headed off to Antimony in Utah for the summer.

Penny Blair, a Moapa Valley resident and the Maeders’ niece, said the retired couple like to summer in Antimony because it’s not as hot as Caliente and the fishing is generally pretty good.

The Maeders, both of whom are in their 60s, usually drive the 200 miles to their summer home by going through Panaca, over the mountain to Cedar City, UT, and then north on I-15 to State Route 20 which leads to Antimony. It’s a beautiful, peaceful drive.

At about 6 a.m. Joe led off pulling a big trailer and Glenda followed driving the jeep with Shasta the German Shepherd for company. The couple planned to communicate on the trip with walkie-talkies.

About the time the Maeders reached Panaca, Mother Nature began calling Glenda and she stopped to answer since the walkie-talkie was useless in this case. She did, however, use the communicator to tell her husband she was stopping.

Anyway, Joe kept going since there was no place for him to pull over with the trailer and he knew Glenda would finish with Mother Nature and then catch up … at least that was the plan.

Joe drove along enjoying the scenery and the fresh spring weather. The road was clear, the sky was blue and Joe, not hearing anything on the walkie-talkie from Glenda, was apparently pleased his wife must be enjoying the drive as much as he was.

He drove on down the road to Beryl Junction and then over the hill to Cedar City where he finally stopped to look for his wife who was not answering calls on the walkie-talkie. He wasn’t too worried, however, because Glenda often moves at her own pace and in her own way.

Unfortunately, there was a problem.

Glenda had gotten back in the jeep with Shasta and started to drive … and drive and drive and drive.

Somehow, somewhere, Glenda said she apparently got a little mixed up and turned around and didn’t know she was going in the wrong direction, down the wrong road, and Joe wouldn’t answer the walkie-talkie, and she just kept going and OH MY, IT WAS JUST TERRIBLY CONFUSING.

Finally, Glenda said, she didn’t know where she was, or how she got there or what else to do and that darn Joe just wouldn’t answer the walkie-talkie so she pulled over to try and figure things out. Only later would she discover she had actually driven to California and was now parked on Interstate 15 near the Cima exit about 25 miles south of Nevada.

Joe eventually realized he had lost his wife so he spent the next several hours driving back to Beryle Junction, then back to Cedar City and then up to Antimony in the dark. He, too, was pretty upset.

This is where Dennis Bracken enters the picture.

Bracken said he has been driving a tow truck for 15 years. He works for A-1 All Night Service Towing Co., a AAA affiliate.

On May 31 he had been working up and down I-15 between Baker, CA. and Primm, NV, for most of the afternoon and evening. He had passed Glenda’s jeep several times but just assumed it was someone who had broken down and abandoned their vehicle.

Finally, at about 11 p.m. Bracken’s shift was over and he was headed for home when Glenda blinked her lights at the tow truck. Seventeen hours had passed since Glenda and Joe had left Caliente.

Bracken explained he stopped and began talking with Glenda who was “kind of out of it.”

“She didn’t know where she was, how she got there or just about anything else,” Bracken said. “I guess she just planned to sit there until, whenever. She had an address book, however, and I started calling names and numbers in the book.”

Well, Bracken finally reached Glenda’s niece Penny at 11:15 p.m. Unfortunately, she had her own problems and told the tow truck driver there was no way she could drive to California

At first, Bracken said he planned to tow Glenda to one of the hotels in Primm, “but then we found out none of them would take a big dog like Shasta.”

“Well, there’s was no way I could leave her,” Bracken said. “I didn’t even feel right just trying to get her turned in the right direction and telling her to drive. If something would have happened to her I would never have been able to forgive myself.”

After talking with Penny, Bracken said he did the only thing he felt he could.

“I loaded up her car (on the tow truck) and drove the 165 miles to the Logandale exit on 1-15 in Nevada where I met Penny and turned Glenda over to her,” Bracken said.

There was some money involved in the swap of Glenda from Bracken to Penny, but that’s between them and it most assuredly wasn’t enough.

Glenda also handed “a bunch of ones” to her rescuer, “and I gave him a big hug, too,” she said.

It’s been rumored that Shasta, who rode in the jeep on the back of the tow truck all the way from California, also gave him a lick, but that’s unconfirmed

Nevertheless, all’s well that ends well and Glenda and Joe were eventually reunited. (Joe drives behind his wife now when they travel.)

Bracken’s quite a guy. He downplays the whole thing and modestly insists he was only doing what any other AAA driver would have done.

“It’s my job to be out here and help people,” he said.

Without a doubt, he’s the type of person you’d like to believe all your neighbors are like, rural or not.

“Rural Rants” is a column about rural living and the people who live here. It appears the first and third Wednesday of the month. Your comments and input are important and will be appreciated. Contact me via email at mouse@mvdsl.com.