Just Passin' Through

Just Passin' Through

Got an email from an old friend recently. He wanted to talk a bit about this and that, to respond with his views about a few things that I'd been doing and to also tell me that he would be back in our hometown about the beginning of the second week of next month. Now that was some wonderful news! I only got reacquainted with this guy two years ago after a very long absence and am tickled he's going to be back in town for a while. Unfortunately I know that he's not staying long. Couple of weeks, probably. Maybe three.

The truth is that he's just passin' through. From where and to where you might ask? That's the interesting part about him and his wife.

Some background...

First off, he and his wife are retired. That allows them time to do things. And the things that he and his wife like to do most of is travel. They've purchased a humungous (at least to my eyes) humdinger of a motor coach and they travel.

They travel a lot.

They hunker down in one of the warm southwestern states in the wintertime, though. They've a home in the desert down there. But, when the weather warms up they start their annual trek.

Where do they normally go, you might ask?

Well, apparently just about everywhere.

I used to think that I was a half-way well-traveled man. Sorta-kinda. At least in the good ol' U.S.A. I make sure I go on vacation every summer and not always to the same place. I've been to quite a few locations, both as a single man and a married one.

Quite a few places.

Or so I've thought.

But to be brutally honest, I'm a baby, a veritable neophyte, a wet-behind-the-ears tyro in the travel game compared to these two. They are travel monsters! They have two destinations they try to achieve each year, everywhere and almost everywhere. They've consistently attained the latter and are always shooting for the former.

They travel the warm months of the year by motor-home, generally dividing the United States into a couple zones and spending their time moseying around in one or another of them. I guess they might have a strict itinerary, but I'd be a little surprised if they did.

I think the true destination for their yearly travels is probably this: lets stay south a bit this year then head through our old home state. After that, lets see which way the wind blows and follow that for a while.

Or: “I've got a hankering for a Nathan's hot dog. Let's go to Coney Island.”

Or: “I heard that Dean Martin was from Steubenville, Ohio. Let's check it out.”

Or: “I want to see: Little Big Horn, the Grand Canyon, Appomattox Court House, Ground Zero in New York, Stephen King's house in Bangor, the charter boat fleet coming in at Key West, Graceland, the top of Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Half-Dome at Yosemite, a pow-wow in Oklahoma, John Wayne's footprints at Grauman's in Hollywood.”

Or: “I want to spend a month on the beach in South Carolina/Florida/Texas/Alabama.”

Or: “I heard a rumor about the best ribs in the U.S. How they can't decide between ten different places. Let's go find out where they're at, go there and eat at all of them.”

I may have that wrong. They may have more specific itineraries with places to be and times to be there. Maybe. My best guess is that they may have a place or two in mind and a general idea of when they'd like to be there, but they're totally able to change that at a moment's notice.

Their mail address? General delivery, Anywhere, U.S.A.

It's a fascinating lifestyle to contemplate. Oddly enough, it reminds me of an old Western movie or horse opera on TV. The stranger comes into town, goes to the bar, downs a shot or two of “whiskey, neat” and stares at the mirror behind the bar. Someone asks the stranger how long he'll be in town. He answers, “A while.” Then they ask where he's from. He says, “Over yonder.” How long he's been traveling? “A spell.” Where he's going next? “Up the road a piece.” The stranger's a bit road-bedraggled, dusty, thirsty for a bit of red-eye and has a piercing glance that sets all the damsel's hearts a-flutter. Then, after some obligatory gun-play he rides off into the sunset.

Where? No one knows.

And there may be a silver bullet involved. Maybe.

Of course that's not at all the way my friend and his wife look. Not at all.

But if I was to make a logo for that couple it'd look like that stranger. Or maybe just a simple tumbleweed blowing in the wind.

Silly ideas, eh?

Knowing that these wandering friends of mine are setting sail for my neck of the woods and will be here soon has started my mind a-racing. They've been retired for some years now and I am looking at retirement in a year-and-a-half. I try to picture myself living the life they live, traveling, meeting new folks, seeing new sights, being king and queen of the road (thank you Roger Miller).

For week after week, month after month. On the road. A day here, a week there, a month up the road. In the rain and in the sunshine, in the light and in the darkness. Always up the road, always somewhere else to go, somewhere else to see.

And I wonder...

And I try to envision myself in that picture. My wife and I. Road warriors.

And can't.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't want to cast any aspersions to my friend and his wife. They've found an ideal lifestyle for themselves and I'm totally happy for them. Totally! In fact I even envy them insofar as they've decided on a path in life and are following it quite happily.

It's working for them and I surely do wish them well.

But I believe the future that calls more to my wife and I is that of the hearth and home. To venture out from time to time, yes, but to return in due course to the local newspaper, the favorite easy chair, the dog sitting at your feet, the comfort of your own bed and the familiarity of your own four walls.

Besides, where would our gallivanting amigos and amigas have as a destination if we weren't here holding down the fort where we all started?

As Tom Bodet was fond of saying and as I'll repeat for all my wandering friends, “We'll leave the light on for ya.”

The Death and Resurrection of a '98 Honda

The Death and Resurrection of a '98 Honda

I guess I ought to give you a little background before jumping right into my blog for today. It'll help you visualize the playing field I hope.

My wife, my son and I all work different shifts, I work second shift from 4 pm to midnight, my wife works days from 8 am to 5 pm and my son works midnights from midnight (or 1 am, depending on the day) until 8 am. We all have our own cars that we use to get to work and back and for the other miscellaneous stuff you need a car for. And, as things are in the real world, one or another of the cars occasionally needs some maintenance – scheduled or unscheduled.

Since there are three cars, when one is in the shop we can always keep going by shifting cars, driving each others car to work and such as needed. In other words, there's usually a car sitting in the driveway to be used whenever we need one and a key to it hanging on a peg in the house.

That was the situation a few days ago. My car was in the shop for an air conditioning problem. Spring had finally sprung and it was getting warmer around home. Now was definitely the wrong time for the car's a/c to be cutting out and refusing to work.

Pretty much a no-no in hot weather.

So I had taken it to the mechanic's shop and told him to fix it.

As and aside, our mechanic is a gem! He'd been recommended to me by a friend some time ago and I'd noted his name but really didn't need him right then. Not too long afterward I started becoming disenchanted with my present mechanic at that time. He'd not followed through on several problems I'd had and I'd decided I was ready for a change.

I'd give my buddy's recommendation a shot.

We started going to the new guy for our oil changes and other needs and were always handled with courtesy, promptness and excellent prices. He'd even handled some major things well and we were very happy with him. We gave him all our business for all three cars.

So that brings us up to this past week.

My car was sitting in my mechanic's shop getting the a/c work done. I had taken my wife's car to work. I work in a city 25 miles from home, so it wasn't just around the block. I'd finished my shift at midnight and had gotten into the wife's car and headed home. I was just pulling out at a stoplight about 9 miles from work (and 16 miles from home) when the car began to display some, to me, horrifying attributes. It got tremendously loud and started bucking and chugging. Clank, clank, chugga-chugga-chugga, shudder, buck, buck, clank. It also began blinking the engine check light. Blinking, not just on.

I assumed that was worse.

I immediately pulled over into a parking lot, shut it down and starting thinking about my choices. My first thought was, I can call the wife and she can come up here and... Uh-oh! She was in bed, my son had taken the last available car – his – and had driven it to work. So, there was no help coming from her. No need to call and wake her up.

What to do, what to do?

I started the car again and listened. Yes, loud but it ran. I put it in gear and eased out into the street. It shuddered and bucked but kept moving down the street. Chugga-chugga, buck, buck, rumble. I was babying it along through the first of two villages I had to go through on the way home and doing OK. It sounded like the car was dying most of the time, but every minute I headed south I was closer to home.

Just keep going, I thought.

I had just gone through the second village when the flashing blue and red lights caught my attention in my rear view mirror. Great, I thought. Just what I need.

The officer lowered his head, looked in my window and said, “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

I replied, “Probably the loud engine?”

He said, “Nope. Your license plate lights are out.”

“Sweet,” I said. “Just what I need tonight.” I then explained my ongoing predicament. He agreed that it sounded terrible, checked my license, registration and proof of insurance and then set me free with his wish for my good luck with the car. And to fix the license plate lights, of course.

I restarted the engine, gritted my teeth against the noise and vibrations and again headed toward home.

Rumble, rumble, buck, chug-chug-chug. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

I arrived home about a half-hour later than normal. When I got to the bedroom I saw that my wife was mostly awake, so I asked if she'd heard me come in. She replied that she thought it was the neighbor across the street who'd come home on his motorcycle. I told her that no, that unholy racket was her car! I then related the whole story of the trip home. I also mentioned that I was guessing that the car was quite possibly kaput.

The next morning I took her to work as I didn't want her trying to drive the amusement park ride that her car had become. She was also alarmed by it. When I got back home, I popped the hood and looked at the engine.

First off, I'm not a mechanic by any stretch of the imagination. Not at all. Nope, nope, nope. I can add fluids, change oil if I feel the urge, replace plugs, air filters, etc. Nothing major. And I normally would not notice what a problem was. I'd just stare at the engine and wonder, What the hell? But... This morning I could see the problem. The spark plug wire and the insulator doohicky that would normally extend down into the cylinder block and attach to the spark plug was laying on the valve cover. I gulped what I thought was the implication of what I was seeing and looked into the spark plug hole. In that gaping hole there was no spark plug, it was just an empty hole into the engine.

Uh-oh, I thought. This baby's toast!

And I believed it with all my heart.

I called my wife at work and related what I'd seen and asked her if she was ready for a new car. I really thought it was a goner.

I then called my mechanic and asked if he had my other car ready yet as I needed another car to go to work that coming night. When he asked why, I told him the evolving story. He said uh-huh at the appropriate times and then, when I thought he'd recommend my call to a junk yard, he said, “why don't you bring that booger over right now and I'll take a peek.”

He didn't even seem too upset!

I was still expecting the worst when I pulled into his driveway.

He came out and took a look under the hood. He nodded and hummed a bit. He then looked down and said, “Oh, there's your spark plug.” It was laying on one of the motor mounts. He examined it. It was broken. He said, “Broken spark plug. Hmm...”

I still was thinking doom and gloom.

He then did a quick tap of the spark plug hole to make sure the threads were still OK, slipped in a new plug, attached new spark plug wires for that plug and the other 3 and told me to fire it up.

I turned the key and... it worked! It worked fine! The car was still OK!

I thought I heard triumphal orchestral music and angelic voices singing hosannas for a moment, but I might have been mistaken.

I actually just shook my head and gave thanks that I had a good mechanic and he knew what he was doing. I shook his hand and acted the fool for a minute or two with my gratitude at his knowledge versus my ignorance, then headed back home. I called my wife and told her the good news and hoped she hadn't picked out a new car yet!

So it's now been a couple days and the D.O.A. car is still running as good as ever. And I'm still amazed at my complete ignorance of things automotive.

I've heard that there are only two things in life you can't escape. Death and taxes. I agree, of course. But I'd also like to add another adage for your existence on this planet.

Get yourself the following three things in life and you'll never have any problems.

A good doctor.

A good money manager.

And a good mechanic.

I'm lucky to have all three.

So, if you're looking for a good wrench man, give me a holler. He's a goooooood one!