Elves and Blowtorches.

”Why is your father under your car?”

I looked up from checking my e-mail and trying to get a stubborn DVD to play. I'd just woken up, my eyes still not fully open, and my mother was posing a very odd question. I stumbled past her down the hallway to the kitchen, looked out, and there was a 75-year-old man lying on concrete underneath my jacked-up automobile. The sun shone brightly in the 11 AM sky, and it seemed like yet another unseasonably pleasant day.

As far back as I can remember, having a mechanic for a father has been both a blessing and a curse. Cars last a long time in our family, and the bulk of our automotive expenses has gone toward parts. There would be times my mom would get frustrated when he'd spend hours working on a friend's car in the driveway. We never had a garage, though our driveway terminates at a slab of concrete big enough to build a two-car garage on. My dad always wanted one; my mom feared he'd do a lot more side work. The result of their stubbornness was that he did the work anyway, even in the rain, and we'd always have two or three cars to clean snow off of in the Winter.

Among my dad's gifts thrived uncanny diagnostic and preventative abilities. He took such good care of vehicles that the moment they so much as sounded different, he was under the hood fixing or replacing something. Air was always in the tires, the gas tank never dropped below 1/4, and oil was changed three-four times a year. In a way, it always reminded me of the tale of the shoemaker and the elves. Just as the shoemaker would wake up to find his shoes fixed by unseen helpers, the same was true of my cars. When I started driving, I never had to think about motor oil or transmission fluid. To be honest, even now I forget to check, because deep down I know he already has. It's not a good comfort zone for an adult to be in, and something I need to work on.

One night this week, I'd made a casual comment about my car sounding a little louder. I didn't think anything of it, and my dad said I probably just needed a new muffler soon. Yesterday the car sounded fine, and I chalked it up to the weather being warmer than the day it sounded loud. But this morning, seeing that it was a nice day, he decided to investigate further. My muffler, which we only put in last year, was fine, but the intermediate pipe was rusted, hanging on by a thread of metal. Sooner rather than later, it would have broken off completely and I'd have heard metal scraping on the pavement. My dad said we could get a new pipe and put it in today, or I could wait a few weeks for it to fall off. It was one of those life-lesson choices, not a choice at all really, unless I was a complete idiot. I of course chose to put in the new part.

Replacing something on a car, especially an old one, is never an easy process. In theory, one would expect it to be simple. Unscrew a few bolts. Take out the old part. Put in the new one. Tighten some bolts. Drive. My mom never understood how he'd estimate an hour or two and end up spending a day working on one of his friend's cars. I didn't understand it either, even when I started doing more than handing him wrenches. Time was, he'd be stubborn and refuse to listen to my suggestions or stop to think of a different approach. Many was the time hammers, hacksaws, and fire were employed to defeat a rusted, stripped bolt. Today we faced two such bolts, but his hands aren't what they once were, and he's more inclined to listen to my suggestions and let me crawl under there instead. It still takes some persuasion, but there's a lot less yelling involved. It took a combination of physics and teamwork to remove those bolts. He braced the whole pipe from turning while I employed a pipe over the wrench to create a lever. I can exert more force now, but it wasn't enough. “Let me get the torch!” He insisted after the pipe slipped a third time. I told him that was insane. We were inches from the gas tank, and he'd just sprayed the bolt with highly flammable penetrating oil. “That will only be on fire for a minute. The metal needs heat to expand--this is how the guys DO it. Will you trust me? I've been doing it for years!” He always goes for the torch, but surprisingly, today, he gave way to reason, and the sound of that first bolt budging was a great sound indeed. The second bolt was a little tougher since it was completely stripped, and I needed a vise to hold one end while I turned the other. I became so focused on the task today, I didn't even think about my childhood fear of having a car fall on me. At one point I was completely under the car, using one leg to hold the pipe up while my hands worked the bolt from both sides. The hard part was over once the second bolt came off, and putting the new pipe on proved much easier.

Earlier in the week, my friend Rey was sharing thoughts on parenting and belief with another college friend soon to be a first-time father. He spoke about weighing whether or not to talk about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and other fictitious characters with children. There's a difference between belief and make-believe, and as a Christian he pondered the difference between God and these characters. At some point children are told, “this story was made up, and this one, but this one was true,” and there are definite flaws with that approach. There is no Santa Claus, and there are no elves, but parents are real, there to shelter us as well as guide and teach us. I'm a long way from being a mechanic myself, and I wish I'd paid attention as a kid instead of moping about missing cartoons while I handed my dad tools. I'm glad I'm finally at the point where, if he tells me what to do, I can do the heavy stuff instead of having my old man exert himself. Hopefully, I'll eventually get to a point where I can diagnose as well as repair simple problems. And I'll never use a blowtorch.