One nice side benefit of my job as a humorist is that I occasionally get to perform at spiffy upscale resorts like Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, Fla.

It’s no secret that a few days of Florida sunshine around mud season can do wonders for any winter weary Mainer (and it doesn’t hurt that there’s a paycheck involved).

The audience at my most recent Ocean Reef appearance mostly comprised people “from away,” a fairly high percentage of whom either maintain a summer home in Maine or have at least visited a time or two.

Following the performance I experienced an odd but not entirely uncommon phenomenon. Having just spent an hour or so listening to my Maine stories, audience members began cuing up to tell me their Maine stories.

Although the quality of these yarns varies wildly, every now and then a real gem like this one emerges.

My interlocutor, a Massachusetts native who had once spent a year working in Bethel, Maine, told me that he’d been impressed with the small town ambiance and rich assortment of colorful “Maine characters” he’d encountered there.

When the year ended, his company recalled him to the home office and as he was packing for the move, he noticed that the automatic transmission on his vintage Mercedes sedan had suddenly begun slipping badly.

The car had been purchased new and regularly maintained by the dealership’s service department, not so conveniently located at 200 miles away. Thus, on the morning of his departure, he found himself all packed up and effectively stranded in his driveway in Bethel.

Despite serious doubts as to whether the grease monkey at the local filling station/garage/general store could effect a proper repair on such exotic machinery, he was fresh out of other options, so he made the call.

“Ayuh, I ‘magine I can give ‘er a look-see anyway,” came the quick reply, somewhat garbled by a mouthful of Italian sandwich no doubt washed down with a swig or two of Moxie. “But, ‘twon’t be fer anothah half ow-ah yet. Gotta finish eatin’ m’ lunch.”

In due time the mechanic hove into view clad in faded oil stained overalls and lugging his battered toolbox. Once the problem had been explained, Mr. Fix-it set aside the toolbox and slid under the chassis for the promised “look-see.”

Following a minute of two of grunting and groaning he slithered back into the sunlight, stood up, wiped his hands on an oily rag and nodding to our friend said, “There. Give ‘er a try now.”

More than a little dubious, the owner slid in behind the wheel, cranked the starter and put the car in gear. To his amazement it moved forward effortlessly, no lag, no slipping transmission, no problem. Truly impressed, he asked “What did you do?’”

“Fixed it didn’t I?” came the laconic response.

Payment having been offered and declined, the local man wished him safe travel, grabbed his toolbox and headed back downtown presumably to spend the afternoon pumping gas, giving directions and catching the last half of the Red Sox game on the radio.

Both car and driver made it home without further problems and my storyteller had almost forgotten the whole incident until a few months later when he’d brought the car to the Mercedes dealership for an oil change.

Suddenly recalling the impromptu repair made by a shade tree mechanic up in Maine, he recounted the tale to the service manager. “Since you’ve got it in for service anyway, would you mind taking a look underneath just to see if you can figure out how that fellow managed to fix my transmission in under two minutes without using any of his tools?”

A few minutes later he was summoned from the waiting room and escorted into the service bay. With the car perched on a hydraulic lift, the manager used a long screwdriver to point out a flange on the bottom of the transmission housing where a large bolt should have been.

The bolt was missing in action. But, in its place, holding the transmission housing together were a half dozen or so plastic coated metal twist-ties of the sort generally used to reseal bread wrappers after they’ve been opened.

Mechanical mystery solved! The transmission of this classic Mercedes, a marvel of German engineering, had been performing flawlessly for several months on the strength of a repair improvised on the spot by a small town Maine mechanic in under two minutes utilizing only raw “Yankee ingenuity” and materials found in the pockets of his overalls.

And to think that people still ask me where I get my material.