To The Grit

About 10 winters ago I touched down in Manchester in a hard, driving English rain. The city was hidden from view. I was groggy after a red-eye from Dallas, an over-brewed black tea barking on my dry tongue.

- Chris Schulte

“Well, you’d best have your shit together next time, mate,” the customs officer told me after impatiently waiting for me to text my local friend for things like his home address, phone and email.

Long gray halls and concrete walls led me to baggage claim, but I had missed my first flight by 10 minutes and so my bags were now winging their way back to Texas.

“Two to five days and we’ll drop them at an address of your choice,” the customer service desk informed me. Thankfully, I packed spare clothes and climbing shoes in a carry on for just such an occasion. Four days later I received my bags, the airline carrier service having left them on the sidewalk next to the door. Of course it was raining.

Between my flight coming in late and the good times at the lost-bags counter, my airport ride had missed a hard-won appointment to get his sporty Subaru in tune for our upcoming trip.

“There must be loads of auto shops around, have you looked into it?” I inquired of my friend Adam Wood, aka Woody. He wryly looked back at me, a smile creasing his face with what we’d call a Bless-Your-Heart look down in Texas. I.e., You poor simpleton.

“Naaah, can’t be done really … there’s only one shop I’ll trust with it, and they’re five days out yet.” A roll of distant thunder struck as I gazed outside, across the gray concrete of the parking garage and out into grayer skies, gray with rain. Great.

Our destination, Bowden Doors, lay a crippling three-hour drive from Adam’s home town of Sheffield, 40 miles from the airport at Manchester. A handful of stops for fuel and snacks along the way showed me there was a new accent to be found every five miles or so. The overblown Cockney we often imitate in the States is just one small slice of damn near 50 ways to say “right.”