I wasn’t raised to love cars. I
was raised to deal with them when they broke down. We were always troubleshooting
or looking for a breaker bar to free a stuck nut. Calling auto-parts stores,
asking if they had a solenoid in stock. One hassle after another. But I never
wanted anything more than my own car.
I started saving up when I was 11
so that I could buy something decent that wouldn’t stain the driveway. Two
weeks before my 16th birthday, I bought a decade-old Chrysler New
Yorker for $1500. I loved that car. It meant that I could do whatever I wanted,
whenever I wanted. My goal was to never again ask anyone for a ride.
I took the keys to Bob’s beat-up,
black 1978 Thunderbird, which was far from roadworthy. The seats didn’t adjust,
so I sat on pillows. The steering was so far out of alignment that I had to
steer—hard—just to go straight. It did have an eight-track player, so I picked
up Black Sabbath at the thrift store. I had fun, fun, fun, until I got T-boned.
Bob didn’t even ask about the car. He only wanted to know if I was OK. The
T-bird was still drivable, but the passenger door was dented in, meaning that everyone
had to climb in through the driver’s door, which was about 17 feet long. Later,
the power steering pump went, and the T-bird got towed to a junkyard. Worse, I
was back to calling my mom for a ride.
Cars give you independence, and
they can take it away. In my family, these were the times we rallied together,
driving each other to work, school, or the parts store, finding tools on the
messy garage floor, loaning each other money and sometimes our cars. My mom and
I would take turns sitting behind the wheel, waiting to turn the key whenever
my dad or brothers would ask. I can still see my mom’s face, when she sat
there, wishing for the car to start, sharing in my brothers’ disappointment if
it didn’t.
After the T-bird, I bought a cheap
Caprice, which died, then a Cordoba with horrible suspension and a mismatched
door. It was a fine car, until it stopped going in reverse.
I bought a little Sunbird, which suffered
a timing-belt catastrophe the summer after I graduated from college. I turned the
car over to my apprentice-mechanic brother Ken, who said he would get around to
fixing it eventually. I commandeered my mom’s minivan, and then my brother’s
S-10, which was how I learned to drive a stick.
About 10 years ago, I was on the freeway
when the alternator went out on my Buick Regal. I had the car towed to my
parents’ house because it was closer and they had tools. The next afternoon,
before I even woke up, my mom had replaced the alternator and returned my old
one for the core deposit. Would your mom do that for you?
My brother Ken became one of the
best GM dealership technicians. For years, I was lucky enough to have him fix
my cars when he was off the clock. I’d give him money that in no way covered
all the favors he did for me.
I loved that Buick. I got the sense
that it would run forever but also knew that I should keep looking, just in
case. I drove by a Cadillac with a sign in the window every payday from October
to the end of December. It was pretty, big and blue.
I never thought I would like
anything better than my Buick, but the Cadillac grew on me. I drove it to reporting
assignments and on two-track roads in the U.P.
One day, the radiator drain cock
broke, spilling coolant all over my driveway. Within hours, my dad, brother
Billy, and I pulled the radiator out, replaced the $5 part, popped it back in, and I
was on the road.
Instead of feeling burdened each
time something went wrong, I realized how lucky I am.
Two years ago, I crashed the
Cadillac. I wasn’t ready to see it go. I wanted to put it together again, and that’s
what we did. My brother Ricky and I went to junkyards and bought the headlight,
hood, cornering-light assembly and grille. The hood was white. We sanded and
painted it the same Montana Blue as the rest of the Deville.
I could say I loved that car even
more because of the work I put into it, but the truth is it got knocked down a
peg. I started shopping for a new ride.
Originally, I wanted a Grand
Marquis, a Buick, or a Cadillac. I wanted something big, with four doors and
lots of metal because that’s what I’d grown used to. I ended up getting a Honda
Fit, my first brand-new car. It came with two years of free maintenance. For a
while, I thought that meant my brothers were off the hook. But just six weeks
after I bought it, the Honda suffered 119 dents in a hailstorm. The insurance
company cut me a check, and I called on my brother Adam. Among the skills he
picked up during his life on the road was paintless dent repair. I still needed
my team of repairmen.
All along, people kept telling me
that if I would just buy nice cars instead of those “hoopties,” then I wouldn’t
have had to put up with the hassles of being stranded, waiting for tow trucks, and
keeping a milk crate stocked with car fluids, tools, tape, zip ties, jumper
cables, rope, and other assorted supplies on hand at all times.
All of those car troubles didn’t
teach me to love cars, but they taught me to understand them and how to deal
with cars when they break down. I love where cars have taken me: concerts, the
beach, camping, shopping, school, and thousands of reporting assignments. I
loved taking long drives when gas was still cheap. And when my cars broke down,
I loved having my family there to help put them back on the road.
