Simpler times

[Thorlick]

Since my T's engine is at Erik's shop to have the air in the crankcase changed I had a few minutes to read a story by my favorite author, Patrick McManus. In one of his short stories "Christmas Over Easy" Pat relates an episode from his youth when his father decided to drive his car after several month's non-use:

"He got a long stick and began probing the mounds of snow outside our cabin to see if he could detect our car. Once the vehicle was found, he dug it out and set about getting it started. Now you would think that an old car that had sat unused for months, one of them under a pile of snow, would be impossible to start. At the very least, its battery would be dead, There would be no way to charge it, and you couldn't call AAA for help, because there was no phone and probably no AAA anyway.

Aha! But because these were simple times, the car didn't depend on a battery to start. It had a crank! The crank was a crooked steel bar of sorts. You stuck one end of it in a hole in the front of the car and gave a quick turn to the other end. Sometimes the crank performed what was referred to as a "kickback, which, in an extreme case, whipped the cranker around and slapped him against the ground. But that was only in extreme cases. Usually it just dislocated a shoulder. Before he even started to crank, however, the cranker had to adjust the spark arrestor, which was operated by a little lever on the steering column. I'm not sure how it arrested the spark, but I think if you didn't have it set properly, you blew up your car.

Our car also had a rusty wire protruding from the dashboard. There was a loop in the wire that you could stick a finger through so you could pull or push it. I believe my father put the loop in the wire himself. He was always devising such innovations. He probably even devised the wire, now that I think about it. The other end of the wire, I believe, attached to either the throttle or choke on the engine or possibly both. The wire had to be set just right or the engine wouldn't start.

Now all of these functions required certain incantations to be shouted out by my father if success were to be achieved. I wish I could remember the words, because I think they would come in handy in the operation of this computer.

Before the car would move through the snow, however, my father had to attach to each rear wheel something called "chains." These were made out of steel links, some of which always came loose and banged against the inside of the fender, producing a sound very much like the firing of a machine gun as the car went down the road. Some war veterans dived into a ditch when our car went by. Nowadays, in these more complicated times, we have snow tires, some of which even have studs in them. People no longer bother with chains.

Once the car was started and chained up, we all piled in and headed off to the farm, which was about sixty miles distant. When we had traveled no more than three or four miles, we heard a peculiar thumping sound. My mother said to my father, "You have a flat, Frank. I think you should stop and fix it." My mother never said, "We have a flat." My father owned all the flats. Then my mother said, "I don't think you should use that kind of language in front of the children."

Darn! I wish I could remember some of the words!

Now you might suppose my father would get out and put on the spare. Ha! These were simple times, remember. There was no spare. Only rich people had spares. Actually we didn't know any rich people, so I'm not sure whether they did or not. As for ourselves, we didn't have a spare anything. Everything we owned was in constant use.

Dad then got out,jacked up the car, took off the tire, jerked out the inner tube, patched the tube with a little patch kit everyone except rich people carried in their cars, stuffed the tube back in the tire, pumped up the tire with a the tire pump, put the tire back on the car, lowered the jack, and we drove away. In these more complicated times, of course, even poor people have spares."

...This and other stories can be found in "The Horse in My Garage and Other Stories" by Patrick McManus.

I long for my simpler times, back about 18 years ago I used to keep a spare engine in my shop so that I could just swap it into Rusty and be back on the road the next day. I just realized that Rusty has been running at least 8 years on his spare engine whilst the original block still awaits crack repair!

McManus never did say what type of car his family had, I wonder if anyone can figure out what brand and model they had based on clues cleverly concealed within the above text.

TH

[Wayne Sheldon]

Well, one thing about it. Erik is the best there is to have change air in the crankcase!