Many life lessons learned turning a wrench

My brother, Paul, called me up the other day and asked me to go look at a car he had seen for sale on Craigslist.org. The car was right around the corner and he wanted my opinion on the condition. It was 1970s VW Beetle for a couple hundred dollars.

I had grown up wrenching on all kinds of cars (especially VWs) so I guess he trusted my judgment. The car was, well, about what you would expect for $200. It had definitely seen better years. The engine lay in pieces in various cardboard boxes, the rear deck-lid and a fender were removed and there was an ample amount of rust throughout. After calling Paul and letting him know what kind of shape it was in, I made the drive home and thought, “You know, Ben, there would have been a time you would have been towing that car home yourself and been proud to have it.”

Every family has its hobbies and ours was cars. My step-dad collected whatever brand he was into at the time and we went through large collections of Fords, Chevrolets, Chryslers, Volkswagens, Jeeps, Datsuns, Volvos, various English cars and such. After school, Dad was always easy to spot; he’d be in the ’31 Ford Model A or ’57 VW Rometsch.

The tradition was that each child got their first car on their 10th birthday and had until they were 16 to make it roadworthy. However, most of us ended up changing our minds about what we liked, worked deals and went through half a dozen or more cars between 10 and 16. I started out with a ‘42 Plymouth Deluxe Sedan, then proceeded through a ‘66 VW Beetle, ‘60 Austin Cambridge Mark II A55 Saloon, ‘63 VW Beetle and finally a ‘65 VW Baja shortly before my 16th birthday.

During high school, I kept revolving cars and didn’t shake the habit for years. Some kids had to hurry and get home to work on a farm. I had to hurry home to suit up in coveralls and go looking for Dad somewhere on the property or in the barn-sized garage to see what I had to remove, repair or replace that day. After high school, while my friends became responsible and purchased newer cars, I was still using cars older than myself as daily transportation. I thought nothing of driving an Austin Mini (the original Mini, not this new thing they call a Mini) or an old Jeep to and from work every day. I thought crawling under your car in some parking lot during your drive home to fix a fuel pump, clutch cable or whatever had broken was normal.

Then one day I saw the light. After fixing my ’69 VW Beetle for the umpteenth time in only a month, I complained to my step-dad.

“What the heck is wrong with my Bug? I thought they were supposed to be reliable and yet mine keeps breaking!”

His reply, “Ben, that was when the car was 10 years old. It’s 30 now. Metal fatigues and cracks. Things wear out.”

So, ever so-slowly, I began buying cars that were less and less old. I remember the day I went and (gasp!) got my first car loan and purchased a car that was only a few months used. The feeling of having a car that I could drive anywhere and not have to bring my tools, an extra fuel-pump, fanbelt and other parts was liberating. Of course, I couldn’t kick the “toy” car hobby, so I still had various Fords, VWs, Jeeps, Plymouths and whatever else I liked hanging out in the garage until I ran out of room. Heck, even a full garage didn’t stop me. One time I had a ’65 MG 1100 completely disassembled and hidden or disguised in pieces around the house so as not to alarm the landlord or guests. The engine was in the closet. Fenders and doors were stowed under the bed, glass under the living room sofa. My coffee table was actually the cleverly disguised and covered front clip of the car.

I don’t have the toys anymore — sold them when we moved back to Alaska. (My wife is obviously never going to forgive me for selling her ’64 Ford wagon.) But I’m glad for the experience I had growing up working on them. It helps me trouble-shoot common car problems and doesn’t leave me totally helpless when there’s a car problem on the road somewhere. Of course, all that experience doesn’t go very far with modern cars, which are built more like computers on wheels, but it still helps.

These days my oldest son, A.J., is always outside working on his “toy,” a 1984 Dodge Rampage. Good Lord, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an uglier car. It looks like somebody left an El Camino out in the rain too long and it shrunk. But he loves it, and with all the work he’s done he’s shaping up to be a fair shade-tree mechanic. I don’t tell my kids which electives to take with the exception of auto shop. They have to take auto shop all through high school. That way, in the years to come, they can diagnose and do simple repairs on their cars themselves instead of calling me.

A.J. takes auto shop at Palmer High School and I’ve been very impressed with the instructor and the program. I applaud any parent who has encouraged a child to take the class. I have seen the benefit time and time again.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column under the tagline “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.