The best part of my 16th
birthday was getting my driver’s license.
I could hardly wait to jump in Dad’s lime green ’57 Ford Fairlane 500 and
hit the road. Freedom, if not style, was
within my grasp at last. To my surprise
and disappointment, however, Dad still wouldn’t let me drive. He said that it wasn’t enough to know how to
drive, I needed to understand how cars worked.
He would only let me drive after I had disassembled the engine, cleaned
it, and put it back together. Knowing
that it was useless to argue, I asked when I could get started.
Early the following Saturday morning, Dad
spread a big sheet on the floor of the carport, brought out his tools and
showed me how to take the engine apart.
I was to place the parts on the sheet in the order that I removed them. That way I’d know the order in which to
reinstall them after cleaning them.
I rolled up my sleeves, grabbed a wrench and
dug in. I could quickly see why this
machine needed a good cleaning.
Everything was covered in grease and gunk. I wondered how it ever got out of the
driveway.
By late Sunday afternoon, I was ready to
clean the engine. I grabbed a big scrub
bucket, several rags, Brillo™
pads, a can of Comet™
with bleach, and a scrub brush with metal bristles. I filled the bucket with Tide™ detergent and lots of hot
water. I was determined to have every
part of that engine sparkling clean when I got behind the wheel. I had just finished dragging the hose over to
the carport when Dad returned from a round of golf. He jumped out of his car, began waving his
hands in the air and ran over to me yelling, “Stop!! Stop!!” Having no idea what could have set him off
like this, I froze mid-stride.
Turns out that cleaning a car engine is not
like scrubbing the outdoor grill after a family barbeque. Had Dad not arrived when he did, I would have
killed the engine for good. Engines need
grease and gunk.
Things moved along much faster after Dad
decided to take over the project. He
quickly “cleaned” the engine and began putting it back together. My job was to watch from the sidelines. When I noticed that he wasn’t putting back
all the nuts and bolts, I timidly asked why he was leaving them out. He explained that all manufacturers install
extra screws in case some get lost. Although
he told me not to worry about the leftovers, I gathered them up in a bucket
just in case.
By Sunday afternoon, Dad had reassembled
the car. After school, he gave me
permission to take it out to the grocery store.
Joyous, I jumped in the driver’s seat and took off. I almost made it to the grocery store when
the car quit running. I was able to get
it off the road, but I couldn’t get it to start. I lamented having left my bucket of bolts
back at the house. I was sure that a
missing screw was causing this disaster.
Luckily, I wasn’t far from a gas station. I found an attendant who agreed to walk back
to the car with me to see if he could get it started so that we wouldn’t have
to tow it in for repairs. He took the
keys and, like me, he was unable to start the car. However, unlike me, he immediately knew the
problem.
“You know, lady” he said, “these things
need gas to run. You’re on empty.” With this, my humiliation was complete. I walked in shame with him back to the station
where he loaned me a can to take some gas back to the car. I was grateful that he didn’t ask if I knew
how to get the gas into the tank.
I didn’t tell my parents about the gas
issue. My father’s estimation of my
intelligence had already dropped by at least 25 IQ points after the engine
cleaning episode. If he knew how dense I
really was, he would probably never let me out of the house again.
I did learn quite a bit from the entire
experience. My understanding of car
engines became outdated as engines changed over the years. But I discovered an important lesson about
being a teacher. You must never assume
that your student knows the “basics.”
Always begin at the very beginning.
