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Cars: Those Magic Mysterious Machines
Can’t blame Dad for trying. He’s no expert mechanic but he certainly practices good car maintenance and knows his way around the most basic emergency procedures that tend to arise over the standard lifespan of a vehicle. He tried to impart some of that knowledge to his girls. But we were always more interested in being behind the wheel than under the hood.
Because when you grow up in Tulsa, road-tripping your way around Texarkana (and that one memorable summer vacation out west, all the way to Boise), driving was a joy. Driving meant freedom. Driving meant wide-open roads and singing at the top of your lungs and playing silly games to pass the time, hitting the occasional quirky roadside diner (even though you packed enough food for an army), stopping on a whim to read a historical marker if you felt like it, then still managing to catch up afterward with that same horse trailer you saw drive off in the distance when you pulled off onto the shoulder. And when night fell, there’d be long, quiet stretches with just the steady rhythm of wheels on road beneath you, the stars above, and the moon following your car as it flew down the highway with Dad at the wheel.
It’s because Dad was at the wheel. That’s the problem. What harm could come to us if Dad was at the wheel? Things could and did go wrong, sure, but Dad could fix it. And if it turned out Dad couldn’t fix it, then Dad would square us all away and then go find someone who could fix it. And he always did. It always worked out.
So when the time came that we started choosing our own destinations, I think we hit the road under the blithe assumption that if something went wrong and we couldn’t reach Dad, then we could always rely on the kindness of strangers. And time and time again, when the vehicle that had been our refuge and rocket and magic carpet one minute suddenly became our hulking, sullen, recalcitrant, or wounded responsibility the next, we did just that.
And I remember them all, the lady who gave me enough gas from her garage to limp to the next station, the cowboys who pushed our sinking car out of the sandbar just in time when Lake Eucha rose faster than we’d anticipated, the lawn crew who gave me a ride to the mechanic in New Orleans, the tow truck driver who happened by just seconds after I’d backed into a ditch on a dark and lonely stretch of road around midnight, the farmers who gave us hot chocolate and put us up for the night after we wiped out on black ice on a desolate stretch in Kansas. Despite my father’s sage advice to do so, I still hadn’t familiarized myself too well with those machines I loved to drive but then, why would I? Help always came when I needed it.
Until it didn’t. And of course it was on the hottest day of the year. At the busiest intersection in Tulsa. At rush hour. Maybe that’s why all the other drivers were just too surly to lend a hand.
My friend Patricia and I had pulled out of a parking lot and halfway into the right lane when suddenly her car died. After several failed attempts to restart it, we finally jumped out and pushed it back into the lot, away from traffic. We walked up the hill to the shopping center and thankfully, since this was the ’80s, there was a phone booth. I called the house and reached my sister.
“Hey, is Dad there?”
“Nope.”
“Oh. How ‘bout Mom?”
“Nope.”
“Uh … could you look across the street? Are any of the Hills boys home?”
“They’re all at practice. Why?”
“Do you have a car there?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, great! Um … okay, here’s what I need you to do. Go to the garage and grab the extra jumper cables off Dad’s workbench. Then go to his office and get that book he’s always telling us to read, The Reader’s Digest Complete Car Manual and then come out here to 31st and Sheridan. We’ll be standing by Patricia’s dead car at the entrance to the mall. You can’t miss us.”
Chris showed up with our little sister in tow about half an hour later. Though we’d seen it done a few times, neither of us had ever jumped a battery before. (Hence the manual. I really didn’t want to blow anything up.) Chris pulled around to face our stranded car then jumped out and sized us all up like she was inspecting new recruits, then she handed out the assignments. She and I would handle cables, little sister would start the car when directed and Patricia? “You’re on book,” she said, handing her the manual. “Look up the battery.”
[flip, flip, flip] “Ahem, ‘The Battery. The Battery is located… “
“Okay, we do know that much, at least. Just skip to ‘Jumping the battery.’”
She did. And we did. In no time, Patricia’s little car was running again and my sister was following us back to our house. Because that’s what you do when you’ve had to jump a dead car for the first time ever. You get it home, have Dad give it a second look, and make sure it starts again.
Funny thing, as we came around the corner near our house I spotted a truck with its hood up. “Pull over!” I said. “Let’s ask that guy if he needs help!”
Turned out (I swear I’m not making this up), his battery was dead and he didn’t have his cables with him. So, fresh off our emergency rush-hour tutorial, we leaped out of our cars (sans book this time), eager to show off our newfound skills: [clip/clip, clip/clip] “Okay, try ‘er now!”
Once the truck was humming along we pulled the cables, waved off his profuse thanks, jumped in our cars and drove away, leaving him scratching his head and wondering how in the world he’d just happened to encounter this particularly giggly all-girl pit crew.
And I rested easy as I watched his reflection in the rear view. I’d actually gotten to help somebody else this time. Felt good. And maybe now my “road karma” was back on track. And if not? Well, there was always the manual, and my trusty crew.
Published in Group Writing
I really love your stories. Thank you. :)
Great story. I’m glad I didn’t skip it.
Great story! Thank you, @kelsurprise! When I was in college, I had a roommate who had a VW bug with a bad battery. We’d push it to get it going, then, with the clutch in second, pop the clutch more often than I can remember.
One summer, in between which years of high school I don’t remember, the school district offered a course in (very) basic car engine operation and maintenance, just for (gasp!) girls.
The name of the course: “Powder-Puff Mechanics.” (It was, very patriarchally, taught by a guy, natch.)
The idea of such a thing, and such a name, these days, boggles the mind.
But it’s stood me in pretty good stead all these years. A couple of weeks ago, in the midst of the farm’s latest vehicular crisis (tractor) I was on the phone with my new best friend Shaun, trying to explain what was, and wasn’t happening. The fact that I was able to identify and find, the solenoid, and then jump start with it, seriously impressed him, and he sent an equally nice man (Jody) out to help with the rest of it.
See, that’s how feminism so often misses the point. I have no doubt the girls would be all het up and marching around in pink hats to protest implications of gender bias and the microaggressive name and nature of my class, whereas I regarded it as an opportunity for some early STEM training, 1970’s style, and took advantage. And it paid off.
Thanks, Kel. Great post.
As a dad with more daughters than most people have digits in their mortgage balance, I have been haunted by the “cars don’t always run” concerns with my girls, just like your dad was. Sounds like he did his best to prepare you for the cold, cruel world of automobiles.
What a great story! I’m sure the look on that guy’s face was priceless.
My Dad was one of those that could just fix anything, and did. He also had many chances to help fix my cars. Fortunately he took the time to explain how he was fixing things so I was able to fix them once I left home.
Thanks, Marci!
Me too! Thanks!
I’d have loved to have taken that class!
My mom probably knows even less than I do about cars but she was a Girl Scout to the core. She got stranded in a broken-down rental car with her mom and her grandmother out in some foreign countryside on a trip to Europe, back in the ’70s. Figured it was worth a shot to take a look under the hood and see what, if anything, looked amiss and sure enough, she noticed that something seemed to be flapping loose whenever her mom hit the ignition. We still don’t know to this day what it was called but they secured it with a rubber band (Mom never traveled without an assortment of doo-dads that could serve as fasteners or First Aid in a pinch) and they were actually able to drive to the next town and get some assistance, rather than spending the night alone out on the road. I remember being very impressed by Mom’s resourcefulness when I heard that story.
Thanks, Boss!
Oh, believe me, I do wish I’d paid more attention. Though, living in NYC for the last 20+ years, I haven’t had to worry much about car maintenance, of course.
I DID, however, retain just enough knowledge from the Tech Theater class I took for my Drama major that I once re-wired a lamp someone had thrown out here in the basement. It’s a nice lamp! Still sits in my front hall.
I started reading Popular Mechanics in my youth and learned a great deal. I was fascinated with that little magazine.
Wonderful story. My go-to guy for car advice passed away a few years ago, and I still miss him, even though I have a fairly new and quite reliable Nissan now. But my first car in Israel was a 10th-owner Fiat, and I remember the day the timing belt broke, and he gave me the diagnosis over the phone. My friend’s daughter, a police officer, was driving home and saw my car at the side of the road and stopped to ask if I needed help. Fortunately, by that time I was just waiting for the tow truck.
Somewhere on the internet there’s a photo of Princess (now Queen) Elizabeth when she was a mechanic in the British army. Oh for the days when girls were girls, and men were men… when jobs that needed doing got done by whoever was closest to the crisis.
We raised 3 boys and 1 girl in our tradition obsessed family. And when I taught them to drive it was the daughter who immediately conquered the clutch. And she was the one who paid some attention to all those fluids under the hood and how to watch them. And how to check the air pressure in the tires, even so much as how to change a flat. She’s the one with a tool bag (pink!) and the one who can understand, over the phone, and follow directions for disassembly of various household necessities.
And what does all that mean? What’s the lesson here? Absolutely nothing if you’re not a flaming Liberal constantly looking for oppression and/or meaning when it would be so much better to just enjoy the scenery.
You know, one film they showed us in Driver’s Ed still stands out in my mind (and no, I don’t mean the gross one where they show you all the avoidable accident aftermaths). It was “how to change a flat.” Because the driver who did it was a female, traveling alone. And there was no commentary on it, no “rah, rah, you go girl” or “Look how strong she is!” She just . . . changed the tire. Because it needed to be done and no one else happened to be around to do it. The end. That made sense to me.
And I’m sure I posted this story here someplace before but I’ll tell it again: YEARS after that Driver’s Ed course, I was working overnights at a hotel and my sister and a friend came by to say hi. A short time after they’d left, they suddenly walked back in to the lobby, dejected. “We’ve got a flat tire,” they told me. “We tried to change it but we can’t get the stupid lug nuts off.”
“See, now I feel lied to,” I said. “Back in Driver’s Ed, they showed us a film where this chick in high heels, a skirt and perfect hair and nails gets a flat and she just pulls over, hops out of the car, pulls the gear out of the trunk, throws down the spare tire, sets the jack in place, loosens the lug nuts . . . . ”
And that’s when my sister turned to her friend and yelled, “She LOOSENS them!! She LOOSENS them first!” They ran back out, put the car back down, started over and finished the job. So I guess the film didn’t lie to me after all.
Details, details. So many little details that make such a huge difference in the performance of any task ;>)
Those little details are usually the difference in a professional vs. amateurish finished product.
So glad that training film focused on the right things.
This conversation was part of our September Group Writing, the theme for which was Cars. In October, our theme is Cards, and you can sign up to write about any sort of cards right here. As I am writing this, we still do not have a volunteer for today, so if you have anything to say about cards, whether of the greeting or playing variety or that guy down the street who thinks he’s funny, I would appreciate your help.
In college I was asked by a friend to help jumpstart his girlfriend’s friend’s car, since everyone knew I had jumper cables.
While out there getting her car going, another young woman came by also in need of a battery jump. so I took care of that too.
While jumping that 2nd car, a 3rd young woman came by, also with a dead battery.
Said the first girl to me afterwards, “now you can brag to the guys that you jumped 3 girls in 1 afternoon.”
I never thought to ask for phone numbers though, just took care of the cars and went back about my day.
So, before there was “Larry” there was you: “Skipsul, the Cable Guy.”
Geek!