Life without "Touch"

Shaq finds his free-throw touch and Heat find way to even finals ~ AP headline, June 16, 2006

In dreams, I cut toward the basket, take a pass, gracefully rise up, and shoot with a flick of the wrist, the ball leaving my fingertips under perfect control, perfect touch - swish! Nothing but net!

In real life, I have no touch. Not for anything. Never have. As a kid, if my feet did not get tangled on the way to the hoop, the basketball inevitably thudded off the the backboard while everyone else snickered. Things have not gotten better. When I put a key in a lock and turn it, the key breaks. When I put a lug wrench on a lug nut, it doesn't budge. I destroy wiper blades trying to remove them from the arm. When I throw a baseball, I have no idea which direction it is going to end up going.

I used to blame it on the fact that I missed most of kindergarten with a serious condition, Legg Perthes disease, and didn't learn how to run, throw, catch or color when most kids were acquiring those skills. I still can't color worth a damn, and I am a ways behind in all the other categories too! But then there is my mom. She used to try to open the hatchback on her car by pulling on the rear wiper. So just perhaps the apple did not fall far from the tree. I have scored very well on standardized tests, 99th percentile in everything except spatial relationships, where I am sub-20th percentile. So it is no surprise that things mechanical are baffling to me in the extreme. Lack of touch and being baffled by machines is not a good combination when things mechanical malfunction and must be dealt with.

Whatever the reason, it is a curse. But I am going to work on it. Shaq was famous for not having touch, a terrible free throw shooter. But he kept shooting free throws every night in practice until he made 15 in a row no matter how long it took. He overcame his natural lack of touch. So maybe, just maybe, touch can be learned.

This past weekend, I got a chance to watch a guy with touch, and maybe learn a few things. The guy is Mike Gilmore, and although I have no idea if he can play basketball (I'll bet he can, actually), he definitely is not going to have problems with keys, locks or wiper blades. Mike was crew on Kipper Kite, a Beneteau First 42 sailboat that our daughter Lydia's father-in-law, Greg Hamilton, had chartered for a week of sailing in Canada. Lydia, husband Conor, and Mike had met us at Reid Harbor on Stuart Island in the San Juan Islands, where we spent the night.The next morning, as we were on our way to Chuckanut Bay, the alarm went off on the Honda BF150 on our CD25 cruiser Daydream just outside of Reid Harbor . We checked all the usual things, finally cracked the Honda manual, and deduced that it must be the oil-water separator, which is under the cowling in an (apparently) totally inaccessible place. The manual was helpful only in isolating the most probable cause. The first direction for dealing with the oil-water separator was to "remove the retaining strap." I looked at it and knew there was no way on God's green earth that I was going to be able to do this. I did not even see how I was going to get my hands in there. Time to start the kicker! Since we were traveling with a sailboat, it was about the right speed anyway.

We stopped for lunch at Eagle Harbor on Cypress Island, and Mike was drafted to take a look. It was not apparent at all, even to Mike, how to accomplish the first direction to remove the retaining strap. The strap has no latch, buckle or fastener visible, As it turns out, it is actually quite easy, it just needs to be slid a certain direction off two prongs on the mounting bracket, but you cannot see that until you have done it once. It would have been easy enough for Honda to include one more sentence explaining how but they didn't. Anyway, Mike was able to get the oil-water separator out of the retaining strap without first removing the retaining strap, a nifty trick indeed. Then it was obvious how to remove the retaining strap.

Next it was necessary to remove two fuel lines held in place with wire clamps. These clamps have two little loops at the top, and it looks like some special tool is required to deal with them, which of course we did not have. Mike got the clamps off and removed the fuel lines.

Next it was necessary to remove three screws that hold the bowl of the oil-water separator to the top. This has to be done over water because the oil-water separator has wires on the bottom that are not long enough to let you bring it in over the motor well. Mike got them out without dropping them in the drink. We dumped the gas in the bowl, and there really was nothing to clean - it was clean as a whistle.

We put it back together in reverse order. Screw the bowl to the top, again without dropping the screws in the drink. Attach the fuel lines. Put the assembled oil-water separator back in the retaining strap. Finally, with our new knowledge of how to do it, slide the retaining strap back on the prongs of the mounting bracket. Started 'er up, problem solved!

Now what did I learn from watching Mike?

First patience. He looked at it, studied it, prodded it, poked it, wriggled it, and stayed calm even when the retaining strap or clamps wouldn't budge. That is where I would have started throwing things overboard. Things I would probably miss later.

Second, perseverance. He was not going to let that damn oil-water separator beat him. He obviously believes that if man made it, he can fix it. I would hit the point of not being able to get the retaining strap off and quit. Take it to Westcoast Marine. Buy a new outboard. No way I am going to be able to deal with it. If man made it, I will break it.

Third, gentleness. He did not apply any force to anything. He moved it this way, that way, then the other way, until it yielded. Easy little moves. If it did not come out the way he was trying, he tried another way. This was especially true getting the oil-water separator out without first being able to remove the retaining strap, which made it really hard to get the body of the oil-water separator out from under the engine. Then again getting the two wire clamps off the fuel lines. He just moved them slowly, easily, until at last he was able to slide them back and pull the lines off the barbs. This is where I would have broken the body of the oil-water separator, the side of the cowling, or both, trying to yank it out. I don't know what I would have done trying to get the wire clips off the fuel lines, but it wouldn't have been pretty.

If that alarm goes off again on the BF150, I now think I can probably deal with it, having seen how Mike did it. Patience, perseverance and gentleness are part of the whole deal. It will take all the willpower I can muster. But hell, if Shaq can learn to shoot free throws, I ought to be able to learn a little touch. And I am going to keep working on the keys, lug nuts and wiper blades.

My "New" Car

"Be kind to your Ass, for it bears you" ~ John Muir, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive

Cars have never been very important to me, with a couple of exceptions, a 1961 VW Beetle and a 1991 Mazda Miata.

In 1965 I got the 1961 VW Beetle, which we had until 1975. Patty and I took our honeymoon to the Grand Canyon in that car in 1967. We parked it at my parents' home in North Bend from 1968 to 1970 while we were overseas in the Peace Corps - strangely, the "Eugene McCarthy for President" sticker that was on the rear bumper when we left was no longer there when we returned home! We drove it cross-country from Washington State to New Jersey in 1970 when we moved there. It was our faithful ass for the five years of our domestic exile in New Jersey. We drove it back and forth between New Jersey and Washington State a time or two. We drove it from New Jersey up to Wolfeville, Nova Scotia in 1973 to meet some relatives - but that's another whole story. We left the '61 Bug in New Jersey when I graduated from Rutgers in 1975 and we moved back to Washington State. I always regretted leaving the Bug. We both loved that Bug. Patty says, "Never love anything that can't love you back," but I think we both really loved that little car. It was our Ass, and it bore us well for a long time.

But this story really starts with a bad day with another car I really liked, my little blue 1991 Mazda Miata. I don't remember when we bought it, I think it replaced a very forgettable car, a 1988 Subaru Justy. We bought the Miata from a used car lot in Bellingham. If the '61 Bug was the Ass, the '91 Miata was the Race Horse. It was a sheer pleasure to drive. You didn't so much as get in that car as put it on like a glove. You became one with the road. It had a stupid racing stripe that I always meant to have removed or painted over, a canvas top and a removable hardtop. Patty enjoyed racing around with the top down on sunny summer days as much as I did.

Anyway, one morning in 2003 I was driving the Miata on I-90 from Snoqualmie to a meeting in Bellevue. The traffic always jams up on I-90 in Issaquah around SR 900. This particular morning, I was, as I frequently am, pre-occupied thinking about the meeting. I just plain was not paying enough attention, and by the time I realized the traffic was at a dead stop on the freeway (WHY does traffic come to a dead stop on an eight lane freeway, anyway?), it was too late. Jam on brakes, lose control, spin out - and slide under the trailer of an 18 wheeler - all in a nanosecond, not even enough time for my life to flash before my eyes. Miraculously, I walked away with a few minor lacerations and my one and only traffic ticket (inattentive driving, Trooper Monica Hunter was evidently in a good mood that day). The Miata was not so lucky. I emptied the glove box at the scene, and that was the last I saw of that car.

We had a 1997 Ford Expedition Eddie Bauer Edition that we had bought used in February 2003 to tow our first C-Dory that we had just ordered in January, so I was not in a huge hurry to replace the Miata. And I must say, that Expedition was the most luxurious car we have ever had. It didn't get great mileage, but I didn't drive it far, and it was an excellent tow vehicle for the 22 foot C-Dory. One day in the fall of 2005, though, we saw another VW Beetle for sale in Birch Bay. It was a 1971 Bug. It was yellow, and the body and interior had been very recently restored - it looked great. We took it for a test drive, and it seemed to run OK. Decent tires. Lights, turn signals, horn, radio - all systems good. We bought ourselves another VW Bug! An added bonus, It came with a nifty roof mounted luggage rack and four studded snow tires on VW rims. It was deja vu all over again.

This was in 2005 though - so why am I writing this in 2010? Well, it seems we were sucked in by Bondo and a cheap Maaco paint job...the car was mechanically what they technically call a "piece of crap." The first thing that I became aware of was that the brakes needed a little work, so I took it to Shaffner Motors, a VW specialist in Lynnwood. Shaffner discovered that it needed just about everything under the car repaired or replaced. So we bit the bullet for a pretty hefty repair bill. I didn't ask Shaffner to look at the engine, though, as it seemed to be running fine.

Soon after I brought it back from Shaffner, the motor started running poorly. Then I made my big mistake. I drove it to a local auto repair shop. They scratched heads, tinkered, and for another hefty bill, sent me on my way. I barely made it home. The next morning, it wouldn't start. And there it sat. In my driveway growing algae. For four years. Patty was always on me, we need to fix it up or get rid of it. Getting rid of it was appealing but with what we had into it compared to what we could get for a non-running VW Bug, we decided to give it one more shot. Plus, we had sold the Expedition and in December 2006 we bought a 2004 Titan pick-up to tow the 25 foot C-Dory. The Titan is a wonderful tow vehicle but an awful for the daily commute. So getting the Bug running as a practical commuter car was appealing too.

The only problem was that Shaffner Motors had gone out of business. Places that work on old air cooled VW engines are few and far between. We finally hooked up with a place in Fairhaven in Bellingham bear the Alaska ferry terminal, John's Auto Repair. John has a fleet of 11 VW camper vans that he rents out, and repairs all types of German autos. I had a VW tow bar that Donovan, WG7W on my ham net, had given me when he moved from his home at Dugwalla Bay on Whidbey Island to what he calls "the old folks home" in Oak Harbor. So we washed the worst of the algae off and hooked the Bug up to our Hyundai Tucson with the tow bar, put some magnetic towing lights on 'er, and bravely set our for the 100+ mile tow from Fall City to Bellingham. Amazingly, we accomplished that mission without incident, and dropped the car off at John's Auto Repair Friday afternoon, July 24th. We were on vacation at the Crab Palace the following week, and were hoping the Bug would be ready to drive home the Sunday we needed to return to Fall City.

Kim, the mechanic at John's who worked on the car, was great. I got regular progress reports by phone. A new battery, a valve adjustment and plugs and points got it running. But to get it running well, it needed a new carburetor, distributor and voltage regulator. John was still waiting for the carburetor when we had to leave, but he called early the following week, and I took care of the bill over the phone, and he put the key under the mat. The bill was pretty reasonable - $500 in parts and $300 labor to rescue this albatross. I drove it home Sunday, August 2nd.

But we weren't quite done yet. Kim surprisingly had not changed the oil, and the oil was old and dirty. Fresh oil is the life blood of the air cooled VW engine. So with a certain amount of fear and trepidation I dove into the oil change. There is a drain plug, which was easy to remove with a 21 mm socket. Then there were six nuts holding a cover that I removed with a 10 mm socket. Under the cover there was a screen, that was a little difficult to get out, but I just asked, "What would Mike Gilmore do?" and gently worked it one way then another until it finally came free. Cleaned 'er all up with solvent, then put 'er back together with new gaskets and new copper washers that were in an VW oil change kit that I had from many moons ago. The right turn signal didn't work, and the windshield wiper blades were toast, so a trip to NAPA got those items handled. I popped in new bulbs for the turn signals, which solved that problem, and amazingly, NAPA had new wiper blades for a 38 year old foreign car - even the sales guy was surprised they had them. Last weekend, I washed the last of the algae out of the hidden corners and went over everything with Blue Coral Polish, and damn - she does look good. And more importantly, she runs pretty dang well. I have driven 'er to work a time or two, and Austin drove 'er to work yesterday."

So there you go. My "new car" is a once-again functional 1971 VW Beetle that we bought in 2005. I am religiously studying my John Muir manual. Next up: valve adjustment. Only time will tell if we can keep our Ass alive here...

Time for a Change

For reasons unknown to me, I can't seem to access the old Blog - not that I have had anything noteworthy to say for a while, but all the same, I don't like it telling me my name and password are not correct! So, nothing much to do but start over...