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My most memorable road trip was just a day trip with an unexpected detour.

Stationed in southeastern Italy with the Air Force in 1987, I was tapped to drive to Naples with a colleague in a US government vehicle, a Dodge Aries station wagon, to pick up a highly classified piece of computer hardware.

I'm of Italian descent with a decent grasp of the Italian language; he isn't. He seemed a little uneasy about making the trip and insisted on driving so that we could get up and back as fast as possible.

The drive to Naples was uneventful. We had no problem getting to our location and retrieving the package. We immediately jumped back in the car and started for home.

The drive was going smoothly and my colleague had that 4-cylinder engine pretty much maxed out at about 80 miles per hour. The Italian interstate system is fabulous; the roads, known as "superstrade", are in excellent condition and are made for high-speed driving, so we were cruising in great shape.

At about the halfway point, there was a loud "thud" from under the hood and the car lost power. He drove it as far as it would go, stopping within sight of the next off-ramp, which led to the town of Andria.

Italy has roving assistants to help stranded drivers, known as "Primo Soccorso", or first aid. Soon after we stopped, a Primo Soccorso driver arrived and inquired as to our situation. I explained that a water hose had broken; he told me there was an Automobile Club of Italy (ACI) garage just past the interchange in Andria.

After the engine had cooled a bit, the car was able to be driven, slowly, off the highway and into town but, once it got there, it would go no further. I left my colleague with the car (one of us had to keep an eye on the package at all times) and walked to the ACI garage.

I spoke to a mechanic about the car, doubtful they could repair an American vehicle. He asked where it was; I told him; he got another guy and we all walked back to the car and pushed it to the garage.

Once at the garage, a little old guy with a hyper personality and a bad leg assessed the problem and went to work immediately. He seemed to take working on an American car as a personal challenge. I was astonished, because in Italy there is no urgency about anything unless it's life or death. I figured with both us and the car being foreigners, we'd be there a long time. If nothing else, we'd have to wait our turn until a mechanic was available. Not so; this guy broke the mold!

Local kids gathered to see what was going on. I explained to them as best I could what happened, but I was also preoccupied with watching our package. My memory is a bit fuzzy on what my colleague was doing the whole time, but I seem to recall he was somewhat uncomfortable with the whole situation the entire time we were there.

As I said, I had my doubts that we'd be leaving anytime soon. I watched in amazement as the gimpy old mechanic found a piece of metal tubing, cut it to size, connected it to the radiator and the engine, filled the car with water and pronounced it fixed.

I left my colleague with the car and the package and went to the office to settle up with the manager, a refined and gentlemanly older guy. He hit me up for about $20! Another shocker! I was expecting to pay a small fortune; instead it cost the same as a few gallons of gas. And we weren't even ACI members!

I requested a receipt, he asked me why, I explained that I needed it to be reimbursed, he gave it to me, we shook hands and my colleague and I were back on the road and home in time for supper. I still have that receipt, somewhere...

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