Well, Dad, I tuned up our truck today. It’s the first time I’ve ever tried that. Replaced the fuel filter, spark plugs and wires, distributor cap and rotor. After I was done I drove it for a few miles through Oolitic and Bedford and thought about you.
I decided this year to start working on the truck, now that I have the new job and can drive it more regularly. As you know, I’ve never been a “car guy” and I’m still not. I’ve taken this up in the spirit of repair and self-reliance. And YouTube really, really helps. I think your DIY attempts when I was a kid would have gone a lot better if you had YouTube.
But some things never change. I had to go to O’Reilly’s and Harbor Freight three or four times today. Whenever that happens I think of you working on a plumbing problem at the house and going, over and over, to the hardware store in Oolitic. It was aggravating for you but fun for me. I wish we still had a hardware store like that. That wonderful smell. The owner who always knew what you needed and where it was in that infinity of small bits of American manufacturing.
I picked up a few tools for the job: a click-type torque wrench (they had digital but who wants that?), two spark plug sockets (the second because the first was the wrong size, despite the insistence of the guy at O’Reilly’s), and an impressively long extension bar (YouTube guy said I’d thank him, and I did). I probably used some of your tools at some point; your tools have been mixed with mine for so long that I sometimes forget which is which, except for those few you engraved your initials into.
Remember when I took your brand new set of punches and–for reasons unknown to me even at the time–sunk each one into different parts of the yard with a hammer? I remember you being more confused than angry. Looking back, I know that was more of a hardship than you let on, since you needed those for work.
The truck is running better. It starts a bit slow but it was doing that in the days before the tune-up so I’m hoping it’s unrelated. I’m glad Rachel talked me out of selling it a few times over the years. Well, I say she “talked me out of it”; what happened is she told me no.
There’s plenty more work to do and I’ll be thinking of you now and then as I do it. I hope you’re well, or getting that way. Drop in anytime.