Dad Fixes Cars

Dad was always fixing cars. I just assumed that was one of the struggles of life. As a kid you think everything around you is normal. I had no idea that it was possible to have a car that wasn't always in need of repair. Like taking out the garbage or chopping firewood - keeping the cars running was just part of the routine.

Western Washington is a notoriously rainy place, and - nestled snug in the foothills of the Cascades, Granite Falls gets more rain on average than even famously-soggy Seattle. And, at our northern latitude, for most of the year it gets dark quite early. These factors combined to further dad's misery as he battled the beasts, seemingly daily - maybe weekly. I'm not really sure. Suffice it to say - all the damn time. He didn't have a garage or even a paved driveway in which to work. It was out of doors, in the muddy, puddle-riddled, gravel driveway where he labored. Often with a tarp stretched from the corners of raised hood, to the two small evergreen trees at the end of the driveway. He had a single-bulb drop-light at the end of an extension cord, wedged wherever it needed to be to shed some light among the dirty hoses, and cold, greasy metal guts of the car.

It wasn't just one vehicle which was the object of dad's angst. There were many. I remember a 1970-somethin Ford pickup truck from which dad hoisted the engine, using the frame of my swing-set as a boom. There was a red Ford Pinto with Yosemite Sam "Back off" mud flaps that had the transmission out at some point - for what I don't know, probably a clutch replacement. I'll never forget the baby-blue Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme which caught fire for no apparent reason in the Behnke's driveway, and burned completely to the ground after school one day. They each needed their fair share of dad's time, cash and blood to stay functional. But there was one - one car in particular which was the thorn in his side like no other: The Datsun 710 station wagon. What a piece of shit!

Dad was under that car, while rivers of rainwater crept in from the sides, or busting his knuckles on the sharp edges of the engine block, or struggling to reach some out-of-the-way stuck bolt more times than I could possibly recount for you. It was a fairly common sight, in the evening time, to see dad sitting at the dining room table, with a tarp laid out to protect the table surface, and the hundred tiny innards of the carburetor spread out like the yields of some gruesome mechanical dissection: Springs, mysterious, funny-looking brass screws, gaskets of all shapes and innumerable nuts, bolts and washers.

It wasn't a hobby and dad took no joy from this endless dance. He simply needed to get to work in the morning. And mom needed to get us kids to school. There was always an undertone of desperation and frustration. It was during these unpleasant episodes where I first learned the phrases "racing the clock" or "racing against time". I'm quite sure there were other things he would have rather been doing on any given evening than getting oil, brake fluid, gasoline and carburetor cleaner all over himself. His hands were often greasy and his knuckles often bloody - as he pressed on, well after dark time and again - cursing that Datsun under his breath - and often aloud - as he did.

I don't know why we didn't ever have a decent car. I guess it was a money problem. Maybe they didn't want to take out a loan or maybe they couldn't get one. I'm not sure.

For all the hard times and problem, at least one good thing did come of all this: I learned to work on cars, without hardly ever trying. By watching dad while I held a flashlight for him or handed him tools, I got rather comfortable with the inner workings of the average motor vehicle. And he was always good at explaining what he was doing and why - I guess that's just something teachers and/or dads do. Those skills have come in quite handy for me over the years and I've saved quite a lot of money performing my own repairs since then. Thanks, dad.