Some things do not seem so long ago. The world I was born into was not so complicated as I’m finding it now. (For example with a few wrenches and a screwdriver a shade tree mechanic could tear down a an oil-burning tractor engine and put in new piston rings). Not many people can work on a vehicle at home anymore. We had an experience last week which I hope I do not have many of. Mary called me from Kohl’s Dept Store saying our car would not turn over when she tried starting it. With that, I jumped in the old pickup and drove over, not knowing if I would need to call AAA for a tow to a mechanic or what. As I stood there with the hood raised a gentleman waiting for his wife to come out of the store strolled over. We talked it over and came to the conclusion that our car had a dead battery. I did not have battery cables for a jump start, but Lowe’s is in that same complex of stores so I went in and bought a set of jumper cables. He assisted me in getting it started, and I had every intention of having Mary drive it home, and then I would then go buy a battery in downtown Mandan. She killed the engine. It needed to be jumped again. I raised the hoods again and hooked the cables up and told her to turn it over. Nothing. I reversed the cables. It started. Then she said some lights won’t go off, ABS and brake, the AC stopped blowing cold, and on driving it home discovered the cruise control didn’t engage. I had committed a stupid error of judgment by not being patient and hooking the jumper cables up correctly.
It was late Friday afternoon, and I did not try to find a mechanic, thinking I can wait until Monday. We drove the car all weekend as is, but I asked a car salesman acquaintance of mine if he could recommend a good private mechanic. Yes, he could, and I looked him up first thing Monday morning. Some good old boys over the weekend had told me, “Oh, boy, I hope you didn’t burn out a computer unit,” or “Man, you can really screw the engine up if you hook them up wrong!” I left the car at the shop full of fear that I had set myself up for a costly repair bill. Luck was with us! Our new found mechanic was a true fixer. In the end he did not install a single new part. Instead, he patiently went through a full series of diagnostics, downloaded schematics off the internet, eliminated this, by-passed that, etc. His final analysis found a wire leading into a fuse box under the dash had gotten fried. He pulled it out, scratched off the sooty coating, took a dental pick and scratched the inside of its socket, put it back together, and it runs perfectly. His bill: two hours of labor. I shudder to think how some mechanics would have started sticking new parts into it, and in the end might still not have found the problem.
Now, if I could get someone to show me how to run the damn publishing program I bought for this computer so I can print my chapbook of poetry!
