I’m a do-it-yourself kind of guy and pretty handy with a wrench. Righty tighty, lefty loosie. What more do you need to know? I do have some experience to back that up. When I was in college, I was an auto mechanic for a couple of years. Job requirements were the ability to push a broom and the will to learn. All I cared about was, I needed money and any job would do. How bad could it be? Learning which way to tighten a bolt was one of my first lessons in auto repair. I attempted to loosen a bolt in the aluminum casing of a Pontiac transmission by turning it the wrong way. I put all my strength into it and got the bolt to finally move. Of course, that’s because I had completely stripped the threads that held it in place. Right after being taught which way to turn a bolt to loosen it, I learned how to put new threads in a stripped bolt hole. You could say my first day as a mechanic was quite a learning experience.
It turned out I was pretty good at the auto mechanic thing. As time went by, I was pushing the broom less and working on cars more. Except for being covered in oil and grease, it was kind of fun.
I worked on cars before pollution control devices. For all those young people out there, no, dinosaurs were not roaming the earth. It was also long before cars become computerized. The cars I worked on were nuts, bolds, rubber and wires. Pretty simple. Cars were a much simpler machine and much less reliable as a result.
Since I was working in an auto repair shop, I became the default auto mechanic of my family. If something was wrong with a car, I was the one everyone expected to fix it. Lots of pressure. My dad didn’t like the way his car was running and told me to get it running smoothly (that’s right, told me, not asked me). I had a very small tool box and nowhere to work but I did have a friend that had a garage that was well equipped to do the job. I spent a lot of time there fine tuning my auto repair knowledge. Sometimes being successful and other times making whatever the problem was much worse. I could get his car running smoothly, if he didn’t pay attention to the excessive smoke coming out the tailpipe. Hey, there are trade offs.
As time passed, I learned much more about cars and made fewer mistakes. Once, when I lived in the land of road salt, the exhaust pipe on my Pinto rusted through. The rest of the pipe still looked good and I couldn’t afford purchasing a whole new exhaust system so I improvised. My wife and I just had some Campbell’s Tomato Soup and I saw the solution to my exhaust problem. Removing both ends of the can then cutting down the side, I was able to wrap it around the broken area of the pipe and tighten it in place with two hose clamps. I left the can label on so whoever owned the car in the future would realize how clever I was.
In about 1974, due to government regulations, cars started coming with pollution control devices. This was the beginning of the end of my career as a mechanic. Cars now had to pass a pollution test. One wrong turn and crazy improvisation, the car could fail. No more soup cans on the exhaust. I’m sure Campbell’s Soup stock took a nosedive.
I still change windshield wipers, headlight bulbs (if I can get at them), and change the oil once the car is out of warranty. I no longer try to do anything under the hood. My days of changing timing belts, spark plugs and timing the engine are long gone. The car I have now is a hybrid and has a big sticker under the hood saying “HIGH VOLTAGE.” Damn, I’m afraid I’ll fry myself just by opening the hood. I am at the mercy of the dealership’s service center. When I have a problem with a car, the guy who checks me in at the garage is just the middleman between me and the computer that determines what’s wrong with my car. The days of describing your car issues by trying to imitate the sound it is making, are long gone. I was kind of like the “Rich Little” of making those sounds. Who’s Rich Little…look it up.
There is a benefit to the computer. It narrows it down to the exact problem. Great! It also must calculate the outrageous cost of repairing the car and print it out on a nice sheet of yellow paper. I can’t head to my buddy’s garage anymore and try to fix it. I would need a degree in computer science and equipment that costs just a little less than the Space Shuttle and is more sophisticated.
Here’s my dream. One day before I’m too old, I will own an old, beat up 65 Mustang V-8. I now own enough tools and have whatever is necessary to work on this cool, but very simple machine. I watch those shows on the Motor Trend channel where they take old rusted barn finds and restore them into cars that are better than what rolled off the assembly line. That’s my dream.
The truth would be, I would buy the car and get four cinder blocks for it to sit on in the side yard. Every once in a while I would go out and fiddle with it but never enough to make too much progress. Eventually I would realize I will never finish the project and sell the car. Later I will be watching a car restoration show and see the rusted hulk I sold being restored to its original beauty in an hour.
To ease my pain, I go out to the garage to change the windshield wipers on my car. Unfortunately, they are automatic (they start if they detect rain) and I fear I might screw them up if I touch them. I guess it’s time for me to follow the dinosaurs into extinction.I am now as dependent on my watch as I am my phone. Thanks to my watch I work out more often and harder than before having it. If I don’t reach my goals, I feel guilty and get back out there and keep exercising. Each day I check my app that tells me how many steps I take. Heart rate is important and I am checking it on a regular basis. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is see how I slept. Seems strange since I’m the one sleeping but need my watch to tell me if I had a good night’s sleep. It has gotten to the point that when someone greets me and asks how I’m doing my answer is, “Let me ask for my watch.”
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