Father Far and Away Part IV

The relationship between man and machine was once rooted in the bond between man and beasts of burden. Since the beginning of recorded history, man has bred and bought and sold and sought the animals best suited to help him in his toil. From sled dog to African elephant, camel to horse, between man and these beasts there was a good-faith trade of sweat for care.

The animal understood that in exchange for the power of its legs, the strength of its back, the lather dripping from the collar or saddle it willingly wore, the man would provide enough food and water for another day. He may even provide shelter for a momentary rest from the endless dominion of plodding his domain.

Then came the Industrial Revolution, when man created machines to replace nearly every working beast. But for quaint exceptions, the snowmobile replaced the dog sled, the tractor replaced the draft horse, and the car replaced the carriage [from which the word "car" comes]. With this latter change, man transferred his care from horses to horsepower. And for much of the machine age, he began caring for steel and gears and belts and bolts as if the relationship were meant to last a lifetime.

But soon this care was reduced to mere maintenance, and in time that maintenance was passed along to others. So much so that today men and women alike know little about how things work and care only that they do.

Make no mistake, America was built on know-how, and there will always be a chosen few who know the how, but more and more consumers know less and less about the things they depend on everyday. They turn the key, push the button, flip the switch and expect to do their will. And when the machine goes kaput, they cast it aside for another. .

Wherever consumers consume, dumpsters, scrap iron yards and acres of junk cars have become testaments to both planned obsolescence and man’s short attention span for the machines in his disposable world. .

I confess that when it comes to cars, I take care of the things I can see and touch, but under the hood my skills are limited to the user-friendly yellow parts that are clearly labeled. Beyond that, I call our friends at "Total Car Care."
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But my father was one of the old-school men who was not a mechanic by trade but of necessity. He did not so much enjoy working on old cars, but he knew it was part of the deal in owning them. Since saving money was the purpose of driving older high-miles cars, it made no sense to pay someone else to keep them running, and the owner of the garage in Berea, Kentucky seemed to understand Dad's plight.
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So there we stood with the rear end of our car still held in the air. Clee was pumping gas for another car, so we climbed in the second seat door and wrestled out the clothes we needed for the motel from our bags in the back. Dave and I had swim suits stuffed in our college clothes. We grabbed them but hid them inside some other things, uncertain of when it would be prudent to let Dad know we'd found the silver lining of this cloud.
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"You all go ahead over to the motel. I'm going to stay here and make a list of the parts I need to get at the junk yard." Dad said, and then he smiled. "Hey, look! A pool. Too bad we don't have our suits."
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"Huh?. Oh that..." Dave and I acted as if we hadn't noticed, but Jim held up a pair of shorts and announced, "I'm in."
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"Good thinking," Dad laughed, and Dave and I held up the suits we'd wadded under our arms.
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"Now you're talkin', he laughed again.

Mom joined in, "Dad and I will just put our feet in."
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"Sounds good, Bev, but go ahead and check in without me. I'll be there in a minute."
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Walking to the motel, something occurred to me for the first time. From the moment the wheel fell off, Dad had not blown his top--not even a hint of anger or frustration toward the costly inconvenience that sidelined us in our journey home.
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There had been times when Dad would not have handled this as well. Like most men, the slightly younger version of Dad, the Dad we’d worked with as young teens, sometimes cursed the obstacles of life. He’d start a day with goals--ambitious goals--which can be a good thing, but he sometimes failed to realize that they were somewhat arbitrary and at times unrealistic.
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I don't know about his weekday goals, but for about ten years we shared Saturdays from before sun rose 'til long after it set, working out at the property.
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Whether it was sharpening all of his chain saw blades before dawn, or felling three tall oaks by noon, or uprooting a half-ton stump by dusk, sometimes the goals Dad set were hindered by things that broke down. The kind of obstacles that say, “You thought you were doing something else today, but I have news for you: your time will now be spent fixing this thing you need to have before you can return to the thing you want to do.” The Dad I knew hated when things broke and tended to be vocal about it until they were fixed, but something had happened in the more recent years he spent with my little brother Jim by his side. Maybe he was just glad the broken axel had not resulted in much worse.
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Either way, we swam in the outdoor pool that night. Had the whole thing to ourselves. Though it was nearly June, the night air was cool which made the unheated water seem almost warm. As we were drying off with the towels from our room, it felt for a moment like the kind of "motel" vacation we had never shared.

Early the next morning, before the gas station opened for business, Clee took my dad to the junk yard five miles up the road in hopes of finding a rear axel for our 1964 Ford Country Squire.
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When we woke up Dad was already at work on the car.
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To be continued...
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[Written and posted from a farm in Kansas, where there are three large Belgian draft horses in the pasture beside the acres of lawn Julie and I mowed this morning. The horses are occasionally put to the quaint task of pulling hay wagons full of campers at the summer camp across the small lake. They are owned by Julie's father who taught me nearly everything I know of the old relationship between a farmer and his team.]
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