The cars and the dream head out on the highway. |
But first it had to be dragged out of the woods. I bought a heavy tow strap last winter
in anticipation of helping someone out of a ditch some time but this was the
first time it came unrolled. The
key to the car has been lost, an artifact for some archaeologist to find some
day and wonder what it might have unlocked. That meant the steering wheel was locked and could not turn the
car, so the tow had to be pretty much a straight line -- out of the woods. Good luck with that. The first pull brought it about 100
feet only to be stopped by a low stump some prior woodcutter had left in the
yard. The stumps around here are
going to be another problem but this might have shown the way to a solution to
that.
To turn the Civic away from the stump I pulled a trick from
my old boating days. Using the
Jeep like a tugboat, I nudged up against the Honda's starboard bow and shoved
it sideways, effectively changing the course the car would take. That done I hooked up the tow again and
yanked the car forward; well the Jeep went forward, the Honda was actually being pulled backward.
Unfortunately
it didn't quite clear the stump and it hung up for a moment until I applied,
what? More power. The car came free and so did half the
stump and we headed down the driveway.
The Jeep passed the huge pile of brush and broken branches I had
collected, but the Honda plowed right through and over it. What once was a high round pile of
woody detritus, became a long low one in short order, but the Honda made it to
where the junk car truck could grab it.
The Honda was an easy decision. That Volkswagen on the bed of the truck was a tougher
one. It's not easy to face a
disappointing failure. That Bug
was supposed to be my son's first car.
When he was 9 or 10 he decided a Volkswagen Beetle was his favorite car. At about the same time I came across
one a friend was selling for $500 so I bought it with the idea as my son grew
we could rebuild it against the day he was old enough to drive legally. As a parent I also figured it was small enough to make it difficult if not completely prevent any sexual adventures he might want to get into and also it would never go over
about 60 mph -- safe everything.
We started by taking the engine and all the upholstery out
of it and from catalogs began buying a part a month to rebuild it. We bought lots of chrome go-fasters,
those things that look so cool, but don't add a bit of power to anything. We eventually got the bottom end of the
engine apart and back together with all new vitals, but then life interference
and a budding teenager's indifference let the project languish long enough to
where the car sat abandoned in the yard for several years. This week came time to accept the fact
it was never going to be finished and to let it go.
For sale cheap. |
As the familiar baby blue VW went down the street on that
truck a cloud of melancholy came over me.
That Bug had held such promise of hours with my son working on a
project, watching him learn, teaching where I could and looking up in the many
manuals we bought when I couldn't and I remember the dream I could see at the
end of the process when he drove off in the coolest VW Bug ever. Didn't happen and today the junker hauled it away on the
back of a truck taking with it a shattered dream that will live on forever
unfulfilled, one of those reminders every parent must carry of a quality time
we could have spent with a son or daughter we love, but somehow for whatever reason, we missed.
Oh Hell! Yeah, for much of my son's life and some of my daughter's early years I was in the National Guard and worked at a civilian job that had me working every other weekend.
ReplyDeleteLong story short, having to pull soldier duty one weekend a month then juggle the two weekends at my job there were months I had no significant time with them.
Top it all off if I had Guard duty or had to work at my civilian job some sort of major family related activity was sure to take place at the same time.
I retired from the Guard in 2005 and found a job where I had my weekends off about the same time. Saw one of my old commanding officers in 2008 and unfortunately he wanted to talk. He assumed in a very irritating manner I must be missing all the "action" and wanted to get back in.
I told the guy in no uncertain terms I thought he was a moron and hoped he did not get any of the guys serving under him killed in Afghanistan.