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Cars. We have had a few
doozies
There's something wrong with my car. It has been a long time
since there's been something wrong with any of my cars. It's
such a nice big lumber wagon and so comfortable to drive. As I was coming home
from an overnight in the hospital in Sioux
Falls a couple of weeks ago, it coughed and sputtered a couple of times, then
calmed back down. So, in the silence of my drive the rest of the way home, I had
an opportunity to think about some of our cars up through the years.
The car we had when we got married was a DeSoto. Remember
DeSotos? We left for the oilfields of New Mexico with our belongings in the
backseat and baby between us, in 1958. Everything went very smoothly until we
started up Wolf Creek Pass in Colorado. That was in the days when Wolf Creek
Pass was two lanes and heaven help you if you ever got behind a semi, and of
course, you always did. We were going through there in December, so we weren't
just going up over the pass and around the switchbacks, we were behind a
five-mile-an-hour semi on snow-packed curves.
Somewhere along the way, we hit a rock ... no, a boulder. We
saw it too late and with a mountain on one side, a 1,000-foot-plus drop off on
the other and you can't stop because of the snow and ice, so we drove over it.
The oil pan was not happy at all and even though we nursed it along, by the time
we reached our destination, the old DeSoto had had it. That was my introduction
to knockin' rods.
Then we went to a car sales and got this wonderful deal ...
an old Chevy for $150. My gosh it ran good. Wasn't so bad. At least it was
wheels until we got to working steady and could get another one. Well, its rods
started knocking before we got home. That was my introduction to pork rinds. I
didn't actually get to see the rind, but I did learn that their life expectancy
was very short when wrapped around whatever it is you wrap pork rinds around to
stifle the sound of the rods knocking.
Then there was the old two-toned green Pontiac. That
was a real prize! Of course, the engine needed changing and the one we found or
could afford, whichever came first, was not necessarily for an old green
Pontiac. Ed got it in with a few major adjustments, notably the gas pedal. We
ended up with a gas pedal that was six or more inches higher than the average
gas pedal, but by golly, the old gal ran.
He was working in the Jicarillo Indian Reservation, way
out in the boonies. The roads were nearly impassable and everyday something
happened to the designated driver's car. (We all had family cars and "crew"
cars.) This old Pontiac lost her muffler system first trip out. Lost the
manifold on the second. My God, you could hear us coming five miles away and you
could not hear each other talk inside the car, but by golly, the engine was
good.
The little family and I took a ride with Ed out to the
drilling location one NIGHT. Coming back home across the reservation,
the cotter key (or whatever was holding the gas pedal in place) fell off. What to do, what to do. Good old Yankee
ingenuity came to the rescue and Ed took a diaper pin off Donn's diaper and away
we went. Home, safe and sound again.
Moral of this story? Always keep a diaper pin handy!
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