Recently, I was thinking about my father and everything I learned from him. Some of it he intentionally taught me, while other items I learned were through circumstance. The easy items to write about are the skills he taught. My father believed that his little girl should be able to take care of herself. So began the intentional lessons and learnings.
One of the items he believed strongly in was car maintenance. From an early age, evenings and weekends were spent in the garage with him learning about cars; changing the oil, replacing brake pads, troubleshooting various noises and sounds, replacing CV joints (CV stands for continuous velocity in case anyone was wondering), and all sorts of other things he enjoyed tinkering with.
Of course, these were all items I hated doing growing up. Really, why was I being punished by doing all this stuff? My cousin was interested in learning about cars, so why wasn't he over here helping my dad? (My cousin, by the way, learned all he could from dad and now owns a great body shop!) But a strange thing happened as I got older, moved away to college, and bought my first car. I ended up relying on those skills to keep a little beat up Sable I bought for $150 running. And that Sable lent it's engine and transmission to a Taurus I bought for $200. I think I invested about $500-$600 at the MOST into my car. I remember weekends in the school parking lot or at the Wheeler House (MTU's 4X4 club where many members lived and tools and advice were readily available) replacing the axle, doing the brakes, replacing the starter, and other necessary items. The biggest undertaking was swapping the engine and transmission from one car to the other. And all of this was accomplished because my father forced me to work with him in the backyard as I was growing up. To be fair, I did have a lot of guys willing to help me at school, but they taught me how to do the tasks I didn't know how to do rather than do it for me. Cars and mechanics didn't intimidate me after having grown up around a backyard mechanic and I was eager to learn from a hot guy at school. Funny how hormones can help change a person's attitude about learning!
But the story continues...I moved to Cleveland (3 hours from my family versus 10 hours at school) for a job. It was my father's first time seeing my car after hearing about all the work I had put into it. Amazingly enough, he didn't mention all the times I argued that I shouldn't be helping him fix one of our cars while growing up. He had a look of pride in his eyes and just said, in normal dad fashion, "Not bad for what you've got invested in it. Hell, you've already had it for a year and been able to drive it for 550 miles a stretch without breaking down, so I'd say you found a good investment."
A few weeks after that exchange, I was visiting again and knew it was time to replace the power steering pump. What was supposed to be a quick job ended up lasting several days longer due to a funeral. What started as me working on the car, with some assistance from my little brother (it was my time to teach him!), ended up in an large argument with my father. He wanted to help me and thought I still had stuff to learn. Plus, he just wanted to do what he loved doing with his baby girl and bond over their experience. Me, being the strong independent female he taught me to be, didn't want help. I could do this on my own, and I'd done a lot more complex repairs on my own! So we argued and argued, finally both going off in different directions without saying a word. Him to the house, me back to Cleveland. As I was leaving my mother tried to get me to talk to my father. She explained that he was only trying to help and wanted to spend time with me.
And my next lesson learned around my first car was an unintentional learning from my father. I got a phone call the next day from my mother. All she would tell me was that my aunt and uncle were on their way to pick me up and I had to come home immediately. I knew right then that my father was gone. He had passed away. It was ironic because at the time of death, I was thinking I needed to call him and explain why I didn't want his involvement the day before. He had always told me never to leave someone while you are upset or angry words were exchanged. That evening, I realized he was right. I never got a chance to tell him why I didn't want his help with my car. It wasn't because I didn't love him, want his help, or want to be around him. It's because I wanted to show him this skill he taught me over the years - how to take care of my car. I wanted him to see that his baby girl was grown up and could take care of herself and he didn't have anything to worry about. But I never got that chance. And I learned the hard way to never leave someone while you are angry. And all of this is tied to a single car (well, two that combined to make one).
A few months later, I sold that car and bought a brand new one. I let 12 years go by without working on a car. Just the other weekend, I was helping a friend with some car 'stuff', and realized I missed wrenching on cars. Spending time with friends (or family), complaining about the design and how you would have done it differently, and just general BS'ing with one another are all aspects of working on a car. It's much more than solely solving a mechanical problem. Some of my favorite memories among friends involve car maintenance.
And then, I started remembering all the things my father taught me that I never got a chance to thank him for; things he wanted me to learn and actively taught me as well as items he taught me by example. And the things he taught by example - they are the truly important things I've forgotten over the past few years, but am slowly starting to remember. Funny how a car can teach us so many lessons...
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