"They have no concept how much they saved my life."
I just got off the phone with West Marlborough Township road crew boss Hugh Lofting Jr., who asked me to publicly thank the Borough of Kennett Square for him.
It seems that the tires on front-end loaders, like apples, have a shelf life, and one of the tires on West Marlborough's loader blew out with the worst snowstorm of the season bearing down. That meant there was no way to load salt into the township's trucks.
"Oh my God, it was my worst nightmare," said Hugh. "We were dead in the water."
Panicked and fighting a case of strep throat, Hugh said he called around to all the farmers he could think of, but no one had the right tire. These special tires, it seems, cost almost $4,000 each, and for technical reasons you have to buy four at a time.
"Can you imagine [West Marlborough supervisor] Bill Wylie's face if I gave him that bill?" said Hugh.
Hugh lives in Kennett borough and was standing in his driveway when he saw one of the borough's plow guys coming by. Might they have a spare loader tire? he asked desperately.
Oh, yeah, we do, the fellow said.
Hugh said he went out at 6 a.m. and picked up the 2,000-pound tire, loading it into his truck by himself with the borough's backhoe. Then he persuaded a Lancaster County tech to mount the tire on the loader -- and all was well in Hugh's world again. He and his crew could go out and plow and salt and do their best for us very grateful residents.
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