My Dad's Garage

He didn't own it. He just ran it.


His love of cars made him a good mechanic.


His love of people made him care about their sick cars.


His respect for people had him leaving the dinner table and going out in the rain or cold to work on a stranger's car stalled on the side of the road out by our house.


Dad was precise in all aspects of his life. He tackled the job with common sense and knowledge. He perceived life as having to make sense.


So in the garage, if the engine had a rattle in it, there were only so many things that could mean, and he quickly eliminated the most logical or else he solved the problem.


He was tuned in to the sounds, because he trained himself to be.


There was no way Dad would not achieve customer satisfaction, because he wouldn't quit until the problem was fixed.


Needless to say, he racked up a lot of loyal customers.


The other mechanics in the shop came to him when they needed help or advice.


He taught and trained, went to night school throughout the years to refresh and learn new things in the automotive business, and always was available to anyone who had a sick car.


When I was a kid, there were days when Dad needed to work on his own car, so he would ask one or more of us kids if we'd like to go in with him.


My brothers were the first to say yes, but they were boys and rambunctious to a fault, and despite Dad's admonition to touch nothing, they did anyway, and so their times in the garage on a Sunday afternoon were short-lived.


I loved to be taken to the garage because I was curious and enjoyed new experiences.


I went because Dad said I could, even though a girl wasn't supposed to enjoy the smells and the hardness of a garage shop the way I did.


I went because I followed him around, watching and asking questions that never drove him crazy. I could tell that, because he answered my questions eagerly and demonstrated and taught me just like he did the mechanics.


I never went near the pits. I never got greasy, because I skirted anything on the floor that looked suspicious, and I never touched a thing.


I watched him remove tires from their heavy rims and shove inner tubes into new tires, then install them onto the rims using a crowbar. Then he'd bounce the tire from a two-foot drop, making me grin.


He balanced the tires with tiny shims and they were all set to go.


Dad loved his work. It was so obvious to me. His face lit up whenever he talked about cars.


He did not stay home from work when he was sick. He had a job to do, and probably going to the place he loved with a passion made his illness heal that much faster, because he was so happy there.


He never complained.


He never had his cuts stitched or bandaged, because he had a job to do and those things got in the way.


When he came home every noon and after six at night, his hands had been scrubbed to remove all signs of grease and grime, a task that took him a good five minutes to do. So his hands were not a "mechanic's" hands when he was home around us.


The funniest thing about Dad's interest in cars was that, after we kids moved away and started our own homes and lives and went back for a visit, Dad would meet us in the driveway before we even got out of the car, and he would say, "Pop the hood for me, will you? I need to take a look at your engine."


Not that the engine sounded funny or anything. It was all about his love of all things cars, and he couldn't resist one that pulled into his driveway.


Before we left to go back to our homes a few days later, he'd have checked out every wire and plug, belt and hose, the radiator, battery, suspension, tailpipe, and all four tires, and if anything needed a tweak, he did it.


Half the time we didn't even know he was out there doing it.


He needed no thank you of appreciation.


Just the sweet chance to gaze at an adorable engine and give it what it needed.


"People don't realize," he used to say. "That an engine is all about moving parts and liquids, and if everything isn't working in sync, the whole thing snowballs into a chain reaction, and before you know it, you've got a big problem. It's a machine," he said. "And machines don't fix themselves."


It was a sad day for Dad when he retired, and a sad day when he saw the stupid way that car-makers were headed.


- Serpentine belts covering it all instead of separate belts doing each job.


- Engines mounted sideways so everything was hard to get at.


- Computer systems that could never replace good old-fashioned simple mechanical parts. Those systems fazed out the solid, reliable mechanics and replaced them with college mechanics who could not do the job to any degree of success.


They may have known computers, but they did not know the engine.


Car manufacturers' warranties became shorter and shorter because of this. And Dad said if the manufacturers have no faith in their products, then why should the consumers?


Dad's generation is long gone. But so are his garage and his methods and his experience in understanding and caring for the mechanics of a car.


They just don't make mechanics like that anymore, nor do they make the kind of cars we had back then.