A BELOVED FRIEND RESCUED

            I was resigned to accept the worse.  It was hopeless.  There was no way I could rescue my old friend.

            We had been friends since July 18, 1996 and since then had spent a lot of time together on a daily basis.  That summer of 1996, my wife pointed out we were paying way to much for repairs on the steel grey Pontiac STE 6000 I had been driving with almost 250,000 miles on it.  It was time to buy a new car.  Secretly, I was glad.  I had gotten the Pontiac from a co-worker years before because it was a good deal, but when I angled my 6'4" frame into the driver's seat, I felt like I was in a tuna fish can with the lid still on.

            So, I went shopping.  A new type of car dealership had sprung up, called Car Choice.  They took low mileage cars, cleaned them up and brought major systems up to standard, then sold them for a reasonable price.

            Wandering around the lot, I saw it.  A 1994 dark green Lincoln Mark VIII.  I won't say it was love at first sight, but maybe the first test drive.  With a V8 engine, it had power!  And a cockpit I could fit into.  No more squashed knees or wondering if a bump would make my head hit the ceiling.  And it had a sun roof.  I am partial to sun roofs--even had one put in the Camaro I had driven before the Pontiac.

            My wife and I sat in the car, trying to decide, Yes or No.  We do those kinds of things together.  "You really like it, don't you," she said.

Berk (right) w/The Car in calendar picture presented by salesman (left)

            I looked around at the instrument panel spread before me, feeling the leather seats almost form-fitting my frame after adjusting the electronic controls.  I already knew how the car performed.  "I've always wanted a car like this," I said, a little reluctantly.  The price was a bit higher than we'd planned.

            She smiled.  "Then, we should get it and you should enjoy it.  Let's splurge a little."

            I drove my Mark VIII for 16 years.  In its later years, it required a new transmission, but few other major repairs.  Except the air ride system.  Instead of physical shocks, springs and struts it rode on air bags that were supposed to adjust and give the ultimate ride.  What they ended up doing was a nightmare--they never worked right.  Only for that car, would I have persevered so long.

            But finally, we had to make a choice.  The air ride system had failed for the umpteenth time, stranding my car in the garage.  It sat for awhile as we decided what course to take.  We were moving and needed to either fix it or scrap it.

            "That much!" my wife said when I told her what the dealership quoted for the repair.

            "I know, it's just not worth it.  I told them I wouldn't fix it unless they got rid of the air ride and gave me shocks and struts, but they said there's no conversion kit."

            She looked at me sadly.  "I'll find someone who'll buy and tow it away.  I'm sure we can get at least a couple hundred out of it."

            I spent a sleepless night after telling the dealership we were going to scrap the Lincoln.  The next morning, the dealership called me back.  They had miraculously discovered a conversion kit--at a huge savings.  Will miracles ever cease?

            So, I rescued my friend after all.  Next week, we start a new life together.  With any luck, my old friend won't retire until I do. 

FIRST CAR

            I got my first car because of someone else’s Christmas present.  Gerald Rana’s neighbor got an arc welding kit for Christmas and that very day pushed an old Pontiac into his front yard.  He was going to make a dune buggy.  No one worried about the lawn; Trona has no lawns.  The soil is so alkaline it kills any lawn seed that tries to poke out even a tentative root.

dimasobko / 123RF Stock Photo

            Cutting arc in hand, Gerald’s neighbor dove in and sliced a big cut right through the middle of the car, drive shaft and all, so that the car lay in two pieces.  Then he cut through again, this time in front of the rear wheel assembly and hauled away the whole middle section of the car.  He was energized!  Work continued for days.  After stripping off the car body, he welded together the front and rear pieces of both the drive shaft and the frame.  The car was now half the length it had been.

            The straight-eight engine, with its 8 pistons in a row, took up half the length of the buggy.  Behind the engine on the shortened frame was a bench seat with a gas tank tucked behind it.  With no real weight to pull, that engine knew no bounds.

            The next step was to weld on roll bars and side supports, but Gerald’s neighbor ran out of steam.  Gerald had been observing the project all along and one day his neighbor turned to him.

            “Hey, Gerald.  You like this dune buggy?”

            “Sure,” Gerald said.  “It’s going to be great.”

            His neighbor chewed his lip.  “I think I’m done.  I’m tired of this buggy.”  He raised his eyebrows at Gerald.  “If you want it, I’ll sell it to you for fourteen dollars.”

            Gerald told me he would let me in on the deal if I paid half.

            I approached my Dad as he was eating a solitary breakfast at the kitchen bar.

            “Hey, Dad.  Gerald Rana’s neighbor has a dune buggy for sale.  Can I buy it?”

            Dad looked at me.  I could see dollar signs adding up in his brain, wondering how many hundreds of dollars this was going to cost him.

            “It won’t cost much,” I said.

            Dad smiled and shook his head.  “How much?”

            “Fourteen dollars total.  If I pay seven dollars, I’ll be half owner.”

             Surprise flitted across his face, then his grin widened.  He stood up, pulled his bill fold out of his pants pocket and peeled off a five dollar bill and two ones.  Handing them to me he said, “Here.  Just don’t kill yourself.”

            I had a dune buggy.  It was a very educational purchase as well.  Whenever anything went wrong we’d drive over to the city dump and rummage around in the abandoned cars for a new part.  We didn’t care if it came from a Pontiac or not.  Once, the starter motor went bad.  We found one that didn’t look too corroded and drilled holes in the frame to make it fit our Pontiac.  It started up like a dream.  Already a Frankenstein creation, we were constantly attaching miss-matched parts to make it better.

CC DonQuichot/Wikimedia

            The real joy was what that buggy could do.  And the freedom we enjoyed.  We drove all over the desert, exploring places a regular car could never get to.  The only things we missed were the gauges, especially the gas gauge and the speedometer.  We were always dipping a stick in the gas tank to see how much gas was left, and we never knew how fast we were going.

            Once when Gerald’s parents were out of town, he drove his dad’s car behind me while I raced the dune buggy down the highway as fast as I could go.  In just a couple miles, Gerald started falling quickly back, so I slowed and waited for him to catch up.  When he pulled up beside me, I yelled, “What’s the matter?”

            “When you got past 120 mph, I couldn’t keep up anymore.”

            I never did tell my Dad about that.