Today I woke just before the sun came up and headed to a small town in Michigan where there is a repair shop that does great work on my 1984 Toyota Land Cruiser. It’s about 80 minutes from my home on Chicago’s North Side and this post is being written while traveling aboard the legendary South Shore Line, which rumbles along the southern shore of Lake Michigan.

On the drive out, I passed through the (formerly) industrial south side of Chicago with its heaving brick buildings, the steel factories of Gary, and finally the heavily wooded stretch through the Indiana Dunes National lakeshore and southwestern Michigan, which were aglow with the last vestiges of Midwestern fall. I love this drive any time of year. It offers almost every kind of scenery imaginable from cityscape, to post-apocalyptic, to almost primeval forest, each beautiful and profound in its one-of-a-kind way. Another bit of luck is a charming gourmet market along the way that does a very nice job brewing and serving our coffee. I had a cup and exhaled a bit.

But really, 80 miles to get my truck fixed? There are service shops in Chicago, right? Well it comes down to a few things. The guys that work on my truck love what they do, which is repairing and bringing vintage vehicles to life. At any given time you will see a wide range of older models there: 60’s era (and older) Ferraris, Jaguars, and Austin Healys (my dad once had one of these lovely money-pits), MG’s, Triumphs, Aston Martins, Porsches (I got a ride to the train station in a 928 and when did they stop making those?), Datsuns, Volvos, Saabs and yes, I have even seen the short-lived De Lorean and the perplexing pre-SUV La Forza.

So is it just because these guys love what they do? No, it’s much more. They are always kind and thorough and never talk down to me (even though I admittedly am among the very mechanically challenged) or anybody that I have ever seen there, regardless of what vehicle they are bringing in or whether they are a man or a woman. When is the last time you experienced that? They always call with progress reports whether the news is bad or (as often) good. They always seem more than happy to pick you up or deliver you to the train station. I always ask how business is going and the reply is always the same: “Great. We’re just glad people are willing to wait for the kind of work we do.”

So ultimately what is it? Why do people like me come so far out of their way to get their cars looked after? The answer is it is rare to find consummate pros in a world of the rude, the apathetic, the arrogant, and the condescending know-it-all. I think we may have a lot to learn from these folks in our world of coffee. Present company included. Anybody listening?