o-zi-ya towing and impound
About a month after I bought my homestead, my car broke down between Shangri-La-La and Elger Bay Store, giving me the opportunity to walk most of the South End to get back home. Before I set out hitch-hiking, a tow truck pulled up and Ted Snowden handed me his business card: Tyee Towing. 24 hour service. Ted’s retired now and the tow truck is long gone and the wrecking yard behind Tyee Store — also Ted’s — has been mostly hauled off, although at some of the Swamp Soirees Concert Series every summer you’ll see an old axle or a truck bumper poking out of the field, which is still giving up its dead. Ted was pretty fair on prices, considering he had a monopoly down here, and if you needed a part to repair your jalopy, he’d let you loose in the boneyard with a socket wrench and a prybar. Strictly Self-Serve. Ted didn’t dismantle them.
Now we got O-Zi-Ya Tow and Impound. Big Walter cruises the South End the way a vulture drafts on air currents, both looking for carrion. Big Walter doesn’t get business from us locals, not more than once, but he listens to his police scanner squawking constantly, giving him clues on accidents, breakdowns and DUI’s. He’s almost always the first one on the scene, too bad for the victim.
Because Big Walter charges a country fortune. Once for the tow. Twice for the impound fee. Back behind the trailer office he has an acre cyclone-fenced and topped with razor wire, a Gitmo for GTO’s nobody is getting through without Walter getting his blood money. The wealthy newcomers threaten him with lawsuits but eventually pay up. The rest of us leave our beaters behind bars until he sells it to the auction yards, probably save us a fortune in future repair bills, if nothing else. Pretty small consolation. Like most places, the South End has its fair share of predators. Some are legal….
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