Here’s a well-deserved shout-out for Paul Spencer, firefighter/mechanic for the Friday Harbor Fire Department.

Spencer took a break from scrambling eggs at the department’s July 5 pancake breakfast to help a Lummi Nation artist whose car wouldn’t start.

Lee and Isabelle Plaster’s late-model Kia had given out in the ferry line but they managed to chug back to the Grange. Turns out, the Kia had been low on gas. The engine had spark, but no fuel pressure. Possibly a clogged fuel pump.

Now, nothing makes guys come together like a car that won’t start. The parking stall becomes a proving ground: Did you pay attention when your dad or big brother were showing you how under the hood? Do you have the patience to think through a complex problem? Can you keep your cool when it’s time to yield to the guy in the Yellow Pages? This is where it shows.

This editor, who was ADHD under the hood during his own lessons from big brother, offered his best guesses in an effort to help the Plasters get on the 1 p.m. — or at worst, 5 p.m. — ferry to Anacortes. I was joined by Malcolm Suttles, then Robert “Smithy” Smith, as Plaster talked on the cell to his mechanic son on the Lummi reservation. Another guy from Lummi joined us. The problem seemed simple, but we were unsuccessful.

I inquired at the fire station and Firefighter Spencer offered to help. He put six gallons of fuel in the tank, checked the fuel pressure and fuses, re-routed this and reset that, and even ran diagnostics with a cool tool he had in his truck.

Spencer couldn’t get the car started — he said fire truck engines are less complicated than today’s newer-model cars — but he identified the problem. Plaster was able to tell his son which part to get en route to the island.

Spencer’s calm manner and reassuring words helped keep the problem from seeming so bad. And in the end, it really wasn’t so bad — the Plasters didn’t have to spend the night on the island and see a mechanic the next morning. Their son came with the part and they were on the road by 5 p.m.

Spencer wouldn’t take money for gas, not even as a donation to the department. He saw it as a duty to help. It reminded me of the old days when firefighters rescued cats from trees — it was done because it needed to be done. Like helping a motorist in distress. Or extinguishing a fire. Or saving someone in a burning building. A need is a need, no matter what it is, and service is its own reward.

Fire Chief Vern Long said that’s par for the course for Spencer. “He’s very meticulous and takes pride in everything he does,” Long said.

We know that big things, like fires, are important. Thank you, Firefighter Spencer, for showing us that everyday problems, like motorists in distress who need to catch the ferry, are important too. (And thanks to Suttles and Smithy for lending a hand.)

Kennedy writes cover story for Time magazine: Dr. David M. Kennedy, part-time San Juan Island resident and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, wrote the lead feature in Time magazine’s annual Making of America issue, July 6.

Kennedy’s article, “FDR’s Lessons for Obama,” showed how Roosevelt used the Great Depression as an opportunity to revolutionize American life, and proposed that President Obama might use the current crisis to do something similar.

“Like F.D.R., Obama must take measures to turn the economy around,” Kennedy concluded. “If he doesn’t, he’ll go down in the history books as another Hoover. But to warrant comparison with Roosevelt, he will be judged not simply on whether he manages a rescue from the current economic crisis but also on whether he grasps the opportunity to make us more resilient to face those future crises that inevitably await us.”

Kennedy is a history professor at Stanford University and is the author of “Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945,” which won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for history. He also wrote the foreword for the book “Friday Harbor” by Mike and Julia Vouri and the San Juan Historical Society.

Distinguished — and surprise — visitor: July 5, islanders and visitors were impressed by the sight of The World, the luxury residential ship that anchored in Griffin Bay for 48 hours.

Among the ship’s passengers: Henry Bennion Eyring, the 10th most senior apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

According to a church member, Eyring attended services on Sunday at the LDS Church on Lampard Road in Friday Harbor.

Eyring, 76, is first counselor to LDS President Thomas S. Monson. He has also served in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the presiding bishopric, First Quorum of the Seventy, and as commissioner of church education.

According to an online biography, Eyring — a career educator — was associate professor of business at the Stanford Graduate School of Business from 1962-1971, and president of Ricks College from 1971-77. He was also a Sloan Visiting Faculty Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Just when you thought it was safe to go on vacation: My Molly and I went on an Alaska cruise in early June. When I returned, I found office mail addressed to “Richard Walker or Current Occupant.”

Staff Writer Scott Rasmussen apparently did a pretty good job as the interim.