Summer Lovin' (part 3)

The next morning when I walked out of the garage and saw the Bug sitting there,  I realized that it had taken 16 years for me to finally park my own car in my own driveway. Sadly, underneath that car, there was also a pool of oil on my own driveway.

Reality is so much messier than dreams.

The first job was to check the battery to see why the car had died at the gas pumps.  Turns out the connection on the positive terminal hadn't been tightened enough, and it had come loose. That was an easy fix. Now that I could start the car, the question was would I dare to?

Hoping the car would have somehow healed itself overnight, I got in and turned the ignition key. Chaos ensued. The motor sounded as if it was suffering underneath its own private hail storm. I quickly shut off the engine, and then drove Daphne's car to the auto parts store. I don't think I had ever appreciated how smoothly and quietly her car drove before this morning. After scanning all the available products, I decided to go with an oil additive that "eliminates engine-knock". "Knock" seemed too polite of a description for the racket coming from the car, though.

I used the manual to find out where I should pour the additive.

Not knowing exactly how much I should pour in, I dumped in half the bottle, shrugged, and poured in some more.

Low and behold, after about five seconds of clamor, the little engine quieted right down. Success! I felt pretty good about that, especially after having called my dad the night before to explain the noise, and then having him yell at me that I had ruined the car. I quickly called him to brag.

Since the car was now running at a volume that wouldn't wake up the neighbors, I took a drive around the block. Releasing the clutch into first gear shook the car so hard the driver's side door threatened to open, and the front wheel was still "crunchy" and spraying grease. These are problems oil additives cannot solve. So, I took it to the closest repair shop.

Back in Rock Valley we always took our cars to Vern. He had worked at the Co Op repairing cars, and then later he opened a business of his own. He did good, honest work. And he never charged more than his estimate. I guess we were spoiled.

This particular shop quoted me $400 to repair the wheel. The next day, over the phone,  I was fast-talked into spending $200 on more other repairs that had to be made.  I then didn't hear from the business for EIGHT days. When I finally contacted them, I was treated as if I had abandoned my child, and asked why hadn't I removed my old car from taking up valuable space on their busy lot?

I jetted over there to get my car, only to find out my bill had inflated to $1200. Astounded, I immediately asked to see the shop manager. He called in the mechanic who had performed the work, and that guy jimmer-jammered as fast as he could about all the needed repairs that I had supposedly approved.  All the while the manager nodded his head as if he was really keeping up with this stammered stream of consciousness. At this point I knew I was being screwed, and there wasn't anything I could do about it...  I wasn't in Kansas Vern's anymore.

In the end I paid over $900.  I walked out shaking my head, and  I vowed I would never take this car a repair shop again. As I drove home the transmission shook the car harder than I could ever shake my head.

Fine. I would tackle this problem myself. I purchased the book "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Complete Idiot", and figured that was the text for me. I found the chapter on clutch problems, and read this:

My heart sank. "Remove the engine" was just one step in fixing this problem? How was I supposed to do that? Crap. Before I even started working on the car I was already out of my element again. What was I going to do? I had put myself in danger by just driving this car home. I had to do some work on it.

And I did. Just like in 1990, I rolled up my sleeves and cleaned my car again. It took three days, and the Bug looked years newer, but I still couldn't drive it anywhere. I nursed the car into the garage, and that's where it sat for the next five years.

I was such a weenie.

Summer Lovin' (part 2)

On the morning when I bought my VW Beetle, I only had a five-minute test drive under my belt before I had to leave town for a weekend vacation with my parents. It was torture to finally satisfy a childhood dream, only to leave it behind without any playtime. To ease the pain I snagged the VW owner's manual out of the glovebox:

I read that tattered manual cover to cover several times; it was the last thing I looked at before falling asleep, and the first thing I picked up when I would awake.

"Rita Hayworth used to say, 'They go to bed with Gilda; they wake up with me.'"
Julia Roberts in Notting Hill

The photos in the owner's manual were taken of a brand new car, and I mentally prepared to take on the varying maintenance tasks that the VW would require. But when I finally got home from our trip, disappointment ensued. I found that most of the Bug's undercarriage, hidden underneath 28 years of grease and grime, was unrecognizable from the manual's pictures. I was equally lost looking at the engine. Mechanically, I had to face the fact that I was out of my element. 

So, instead of turning wrenches, I grabbed some cleaning supplies. Two applications of rubbing compound brought the paint back to life, and a buffer on the end of a drill made the Bug shine.  I washed, scrubbed, and ArmorAll-ed every nook and cranny. Then I washed it again. I finalized the process by installing a used radio, a new mirror, and two new running boards. The cherry on the top was the required "Oakley Thermonuclear Protection" windshield decal that every cool car in 1990 wore with pride (admission: I couldn't afford a real pair of Oakley sunglasses, so I just bought the sticker). Here's Bob and I posing with the results of my efforts:

As for working on the car, that was all I could do. I was a cleaner, not a mechanic. During those boring, small-town summer nights when I was too tired to wash anything, I'd just sit outside on our cement steps and look at my car until it got to be too dark, or it was time to go in and watch TV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrERtikdPus.

Some people may think it's strange to just sit and silently admire a car, but I'm not the only one guilty of the offense. Even Elvis Presley, deep down, was just a regular car guy.

"The first car I bought was the most beautiful car I've ever seen. It was second hand, but I parked it outside my hotel the day I got it and stayed up all night just looking at it. The next day it caught fire and burned up on the road...'" Elvis Presley

I drove my little car to college for a year, but when I was hired to teach high school in Urbandale, the VW was left behind. My single bedroom apartment was only allotted one parking space, and I didn't need the headache or the bills that come with having two non-reliable cars. So, I packed up my late grandpa's 1984 Chevette, and headed off to the big city of Des Moines.

(Sidebar: That Chevette was a horrible car. If I ran the air conditioner in the summer, a full gas tank would run dry in 40 minutes. In the winter months I had to go out in the snow at 6:30 every morning and prop the hood open with a block of wood, so I could spray starting fluid into the carburetor. Then I would go back inside and wait 10 minutes before I could even think of turning the ignition key.)

Dad drove the Bug to work for a few years, and after he retired the VW followed him from Iowa to South Dakota (Marion, and then Sioux Falls respectively).

In the summer 2006, Dad was ready to pass the torch back to me. The Bug hadn't been driven in a couple of years, and he commissioned a local mechanic in Marion to get the car running again. Daph and I drove up to Sioux Falls to retrieve my VW, and I was less than enthusiastic when I saw it. Dad had replaced the tires and the battery, but he had also backed into the car several times, shot out a side window, and cracked the windshield. The interior reeked of stale air and cigarettes, and when I tried to get rolling in first gear the transmission shook the car violently. Still, I was willing to take a chance to get my little buddy home. In retrospect, I should have rented a U-Haul truck, but fools rush in...

Driving a 44 year old car at interstate speeds can be pretty stressful. Driving one without seat belts and drum brakes that require a double pump is probably pretty dangerous. The only way to climb those steep interstate hills was to come down the previous hill at a minimum of 75 mph, and that really felt like I was pushing the little guy too hard, but I did it to keep the semi trucks on our tail from running us over. 

When I stopped at a truck stop near Missouri Valley to fill the gas tank, I blew out a sigh of relief that we had driven two hours without getting killed. Then the Bug died, and that new battery refused to turn the starter. In 1962 Volkswagens still utilized a six volt system, and so I didn't know how to use Daphne's modern 12 volt battery to jump start the Bug. I didn't want to set the car on fire. Luckily, Dad left a large and dirty blanket in the trunk. We wrapped my rear bumper with the blanket, and Daphne used her Saturn to push start me. I just put the Bug in second gear, and popped the clutch when we got to 10 mph.

By the time I pulled the Bug into our driveway my nerves felt as if someone had pressed me through a kitchen colander, my back was shooting sparks, and I couldn't extend my fingers all the way open after vice-gripping the steering wheel for five hours.

The Bug wasn't doing very well, either. The front left wheel was smoking and leaking grease from underneath its hub cap, and the engine sounded like someone shaking a metal box full of marbles.

But at least we were home.

I Swear; You Blink, and You'll Miss It

Nothing more significantly marks the passage of time than raising a child.

I thought she looked big when she turned one:

Now here come the Twos:

Summer Lovin' (part 1)

I could say this story started last May when school ended and summer began, but it really begins in 1977 when I first fell in love at the movies. The movie star that stole my heart was a cute and curvy rebel. I was seven years old at the time, and I was sitting in the "K-cinema" in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

The K-cinema offered a double-bill of old and new Disney movies on Sundays, and parents would drop their children off at the theater while they went shopping for blue light specials at the nearby K-mart. Call it Disney Day Care.

Although the preadolescent audience didn't fill the theater to capacity, without parental supervision the place was a mad house. Kids were constantly switching seats and chasing each other up and down the isles. More popcorn was thrown than consumed. According to a post on cinematreasures.org, "One of the jobs of the ushers was to keep kids from literally climbing the walls of the auditorium, portions of which were cinderblock laid on its side so the holes were part of the decor and perfectly sized for the placement of small hands and feet."

As a patron of the K-cinema I can remember seeing The North Avenue Irregulars, The Cat from Outer Space, the three Kurt Russell/ Medfield College films, Pete's Dragon, Swiss Family Robinson, The Parent Trap, Mary Poppins, That Darn Cat, The Word's Greatest Athlete, The Apple Dumpling Gang, Freaky Friday, and Candleshoe.  Those last two movies featured the tough, but cute Jodie Foster. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSxbnnZ4IzE&feature=related

Even though I liked Jodie a lot, she wasn't my first onscreen love. 

On the Sunday my heart flipped the double feature was 1968's The Love Bug and the new Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo.

Since birth I've been a fan of anything that rolls, but Herbie the Love Bug was cooler than my Big Wheel, my bike, and my skateboard combined. Herbie wasn't a big race car, or a flashy muscle car, but he could do wheelies, skip across rivers, and even drive upside down in tunnels. He was an endearing underdog who was both brave and funny, but he was sensitive enough that you could hurt his feelings, too. He was everything I wanted in an action hero.

Also, unlike other movie stars, there were Herbies everywhere. This was '77, and even though it was the last production year for the standard Beetle in the US, you couldn't throw a dirt clod into a parking lot without hitting a Bug (not that I ever did that).  I didn't play "Slug bug"; I played "There's a Herbie!"

Mom must have picked up on my Herbie obsession because my next birthday was Herbie-themed. I received two books,

A snap-together model,

And a phony nickel twice the size of my palm. 

I know the nickel doesn't fit the theme, but I thought the huge coin was really neat.

A year later my family moved 15 miles from from Inwood to Rock Valley, and for the next seven years I would sneak peeks at the VW Bug parked in the high school lot. The car belonged to the high school principal, Osborne Liaboe, and it looked just like a Herbie. I didn't ever dare to get too close to it, though. You can't be caught messing around with the principal's car.

Fast forward to a summer Saturday in 1990. My parents and I were getting ready to take a trip to Minnesota to visit Bob's parents at their new lake cabin. Because the ATM hadn't been invented yet, Dad got up early so he could be at the bank as soon as it opened. When Dad returned with some cash he walked over to the phone hanging on the kitchen wall and told me he had just seen Ozzie put a "For Sale" sign on his old bug. He then lifted the phone's receiver and offered it to me, "Why don't you call him to see how much he wants?"

My heart jumped and I started sputtering, "No, no... I, I, I, I can't call my old principal! That, that guy hated me!" and I pushed the receiver back to him. Dad shook his head and started dialing. "No. He didn't hate you, Brent. He was just doing his job."

I jumped out of the room in a fit of excitement and fear. I was excited at the prospect of buying the Bug, and I was scared that the car would already be sold or that Ozzie would want too much money for it. I was stiffly standing around the corner trying to listen to Dad on the phone, but my heart was pounding too hard for me to really hear anything. 

All I was able to process was the end of their conversation. "...if you think that's a fair price, then okay. We'll swing by and pick it up in a few minutes." Dad hung up the phone and poked his head around the corner to where he knew I was hiding. "Okay, bud. You owe me $800."

I was stunned. Just 14 years after seeing the original, I had a Herbie of my own.

A Pocket Trumpet for Charlotte

What? Are you telling me not every parent gives their child a musical instrument for their second birthday?

Huh. We had no idea. It just seemed like the sensible thing to do.

When Daphne saw this picture she proudly commented, "Look at that embouchure." I have no idea what "embouchure" means. Feel free to look it up.

Char's new horn is called a pocket trumpet, and although they are mostly considered a novelty in the professional world, pocket trumpets are not plastic toys. You get the feel and action of a real instrument in a compact size for a small investment. We bought this one on Ebay from a musician in Texas who had tired of it taking up space in his studio.

But does it work? Can she play it?

Yep. We're on our way.

(Pssst. Next year she gets her first set of Craftsman tools. I want her to play with dad, too.)

State Fair Hijinks

After a couple of mixed drinks...

Charlotte tried to steal a calf.

Then she tried to flee the scene on a pony (singing "Yankee Doodle", no less).

But she ended up in a police car instead.

Quite the rebel, that Charlotte. 

Sometimes It Pays Off

I'm a saver. I can't help it; it has been engraved into me by my parents, "You should never throw away something that might be useful later. Why buy it twice?" So, it is really hard for me to throw away stuff. I can do it, and occasionally we "clean house", as we did this summer in the garage, but it pains me.

One thing I've kept over the years is my small collection of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars. You just never know if they'll come in handy...

Now I know.

Nice save, Dad.

A Nifty Trick

I read about this in an old copy of "Our Iowa" magazine that Daphne's grandma had lying around. (Don't tell her, but sometimes I get bored during grandma visits.)

Turns out you don't need to run to the grocery store if you've run out of microwave popcorn; you can prepare it yourself. I guess that popping bag isn't magic after all.

All you need is:
1. A brown paper lunch sack. (Available at your local liquor store - remove the 40 first - or at bulk at a dollar store: http://www.dollartree.com/Lunch-Bags/p16639/index.pro
2. A 1/4 measuring cup (or 59.2 ml. I'm trying to look fancy here.)
3. Popcorn. (I used the cheapest brand Dahl's sells to see if this would work... pick whatever brand trips your trigger.)

Scoop a quarter cup of popcorn in your bag and fold the top down a few times. I try to avoid having the bag touch the top of the microwave's "ceiling".

All microwaves vary, so you'll have to experiment a little with your popping time. I have found that 1:47 does a good job. Not all the kernels pop at this cooking length, but most do, and they're not burned. Burned popcorn tastes like dirt.

Of course you can season and butter the popcorn all you want after the fact, but Char doesn't know that's even an option, so this is an easy and healthy snack for her.

The cool thing is the bag is even reusable. Just fold it up, and put it next to the popcorn bag. (Or put the 40 back in and go on your merry way...)

Here's a picture of Char at the zoo. This has nothing to do with my post; I just think it's cute.

 Disclaimer: If you burn your house down popping popcorn, then it's your fault, not mine. Please pop responsibly.

Iowa Sweet Corn

Munch!

Yeah! Corn!

Sometimes I ask Daphne if  people will think it's stupid to post pictures of Char doing random things, and she reminds me, "Brent, it's your blog. I think you can post anything you want on your blog. You're doing this just for you."

She's right.

Moving Day

When I told my buddy Rob I was going to get married ten years ago he bought us a Sony Vaio PC as a wedding present. Super nice.

The PC didn't come with a monitor, so he also gave me an old one of his. It was a Sony Trinitron, and in its time it was cutting-edge: 20'' of clear blue Internet surfing.  The monitor was a tank, and I think it weighed 75 pounds or more  - no lie.

When I first introduced Charlotte to Starfall Camp: http://www.starfall.com/n/level-k/index/load.htm?f, (feel free to click around) she would sit on my lap and bang on the screen to see what the next letter would do to entertain her (I do not endorse anything, but Starfall Camp still rocks Char's world).  No matter how hard she slapped the screen, there was NO chance that she would hurt the monitor. She could bang on it all day long like Dustin Hoffman in the end of "The Graduate".  "Elainnnnnnne!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahFARm2j38c

Last Christmas, when we opened gifts at my mother-in-law's house, my brother-in-law received a new computer and all the trimmings. When the three of us were later driving home I mentioned I was glad I still had our old Sony monitor because Char could kill those new thin screen ones with just a flick of her wrist, and Daphne made a face.

I found out why the next day when we exchanged gifts. Daph had bought me the exact same monitor as my brother-in-law had received.  She then apologized and insisted I take it back so I could get something I really wanted.

I felt like an ass.

Two months later the old monitor began to fail, and I felt even worse about opening my mouth. Here I had this great wide screen monitor to use, and I returned it so I could keep staring at a screen that was progressively looking more like a trapezoid.

Not only did I feel like an ass, I was also getting headaches.

A few day ago I took a chance on a used monitor I found at Goodwill, and once I got it working I took advantage of Gw's free computer recycling program. I gave them the old monitor. Here it is before I put it in the car. I put an empty gallon milk container next to it so you can judge its size.

Here's my "new" monitor. It's not nearly as nice as the one Daphne purchased, but I still feel like I just made my room 10 feet bigger.

There's Probably Not an Olympic Event for Pooping on the Potty...

... but Char did do that today, and it was by her request. Gold!

I won't show you that, but you can see her tumbling:

And here's her floor routine (too bad she experienced technical difficulties):

Char had to wear her Monster Shirt before accepting the Purple Brush Medal.