Newest Entries
Older Entries
Contact Me
Diaryland

Get your own diary at DiaryLand.com! contact me older entries newest entry Favorite Blogs...
DefectiveYeti
The Bleat
WilWheatonDotNet
Spike on the River
Neal in Antarctica
Leah's Blog
CamiSue's Blog


Other Links...
Play a game?
CNN News
Trekky Spot
WOW
< ? Colorado Blogs # >

previous - next

November 13, 2005 - Sunday, 9:49 a.m.

Dad and Memorabilia...

Saturday A.M.

What a beautiful morning. I was up by about 7:00. A friend of mine was down from Lafayette last night and today. She is here for a Toastmasters conference. She hadn�t originally planned to come on Friday so only had hotel reservations for Saturday night. I picked her up at the conference last night about 9:30 and then we visited until nearly 1 am. This morning she�ll spend time at her conference and then I�ll pick her up before noon and we are off to Lynn�s for the Holy Day today. We�ll be back in the early evening and I am going to go with her this evening for Humorous Speech presentations/speeches. It should be entertaining.

I was VERY industrious this morning; I changed the brake pads on my Saturn. That was the first time for this car. I am surprised by the fact that no matter what make of car you change the front brakes pads on, they are the same. I can not believe that anyone would pay $150 to have that done. It�s so easy, and only takes about a half hour. When the boys were young I had a car that had bad rotors. They would just grind up the brake pads in a very short time. I was delivering pizza, so I was really putting the miles on the car. I changed more brake pads on that car then all the rest of my cars put together. Sometimes it was every other month.

I officially started to learn to drive when I was 15 and �. We had a standard transmission in the car, so were expected to learn on that. It took a while to get use to the clutch and there were many embarrassing stalls at lights when I dropped the clutch unintentionally. Eventually I got the hang of it. My father felt that learning how to drive included learning how to take care of the car.

Our first lesson was changing tires. My father was very ingenious; I suppose it was that engineer�s mind at work. He had five daughters and none of us would ever have the upper body strength to change a tire with brut strength. So he taught us to get the lug wrench on the lug nuts and stand on the end of it to loosen the bolts before we jacked up the car. He told us, the first thing to do was to slip that tire off the wheel and slide it under the axle of the car. This was to assure that the car would never get knocked off the jack and land on the rotor or us! When putting the tire back on we�d tighten the lug nuts as best we could and then take the car off the jack. Then again we�d stand on the lug wrench to tighten them. He was careful to explain just how we should go about a quarter turn after it was tight enough to hold us up.

He taught us to change the oil. Then as things went wrong on the car, we were expected to come and watch to see how he did everything. I learned how to do everything he could think of. I�m not sure how much my sisters really got into this, but it seemed important to me. He taught me how to drive a car if the clutch cable broke, who knew that you could shift a car without a clutch? I always drove Honda�s and the early Civic seemed to have a problem with the mechanical thermostats that mechanically open and close a path from the radar to the engine block to keep the engine at the right temperature. They work on a principle of contracting metal when the temperature got to a certain point. I learned how to remove that thermostat, how to drop it in a pan of water on the stove and bring it to a boil. If the thermostat didn�t open, you knew it was bad. He told us that we could drive the car without the thermostat if the thermostat ceased up. I took many out on the road when we�d find that car overheating. My boys were young then. I learned that basically anything that I could figure out how to remove I could replace. Alternators, spark plugs, air filters, etc. I learned how to use my foot and leg muscles to loosen nuts on bolts. I�ve saved a considerable amount of money over the years, thanks to my Dad.

I was an inquisitive kid. I followed my father everywhere when I was young. He was always a fix-it guy and I always wanted to watch to see how he did stuff. As kids we always want to hammer nails to help. My dad got a four by four about 2 feet long. He�d give us a handful of nails and told us that as soon as we could pound them in without bending them over we could help. I think that wood had a nail in every available spot by the time we grew up. Though I didn�t get to help much, he would always explain what he was doing and what safety precautions to take. I sat at the peak of the roof when my dad re-shingled it. He taught me how to use a blow torch and I helped scrape paint off the clapboard siding on our house at 11. Over the years of my life I learned how to replace a light switch and a power outlet. I even did the wiring in my basement when we did a remodel on it about 15 years ago.

He�s always been there for me.

Sunday A.M.

I thought a lot about my Dad yesterday when I started writing this. I really need to write down the story of his life, perhaps in the next few days.

In the last couple of weeks I�ve been digging through boxes looking for something for my mother. I�ve come across SO much stuff. I found the journal I kept on our trip to California when I was 15, correspondence, and tons of journaling I�ve done over the years. I don�t know what to do with all of it, but keep it. I have all the correspondence between my parent and us for the years they lived in Israel. I have all the correspondence from when Justin was in India. I have all the journals from the time I was about 9 on!! Gah!! I keep too much stuff, but I can�t part with any of it. It�s my life.

Homework is on the agenda for today. Ugh!! The house is cold. It�s 37 outside and I don�t think the furnace is on and� oh yah� the window is open. :o) I just got up and closed THAT. A hot bath is sounding lovely.

I�m off to try to accomplish something today.

0 comments so far

about me - read my profile! read other DiaryLand diaries! recommend my diary to a friend! Get your own fun + free diary at DiaryLand.com!