In quarantine, things happen that get you thinking. Like yesterday morning…
Rilla’s new car had an error message, so I called the Tesla service line and a sweet old lady in Utah diagnosed the issue by logging into the car remotely and noticed that a “hiccup” in the overnight firmware upgrade had caused a problem. An hour later two guys showed up at my garage, replaced a part and left, remotely sending a new software package that they said “would take care of everything.”
As they drove away, my prevailing thought was: My dad would never have believed this.
I mean—sure—he also would have had a hard time believing a car could navigate and drive itself, come find me in a parking lot, and make random fart noises when you use the turn signal, but this repair thing? Never.
Let’s rewind for a minute.
Chuck Allen Sr. was a car guy. I can’t tell you how many times I held the light as he changed the brakes or installed a water pump or replaced a distributor cap. I pumped the brakes and held while he bled the lines. I slowly pumped the jack handle to lift the rebuilt transmission into place so he could bolt it to the motor. By the time I was 16 years old I could replace a head gasket, change the spark plugs, repair a radiator, install a headliner, hook up a stereo, change the fuses and a hundred other things that I had no intention of ever doing again in the future.
When I left home and grew up, I’d have a mechanic take care of this stuff. Someone who knew what they were doing and had the right tools for the job. I wouldn’t waste my weekends in the garage getting all greasy and busting my knuckles just to save a few bucks.
And so for the last 30 years or so, that’s what I’ve done. And it’s been fine. From time to time I would catch a mechanic feeding me a line and was quickly able to set him straight, and I felt pretty good about that. But overall I was more than happy to let someone else change the oil, rotate the tires, clean the injectors and replace the brakes. It’s been OK.
Back to yesterday.
With the state on lockdown and the carwashes closed, I grabbed a bucket and stretched the hose out and started washing the Tesla. And it struck me, all of a sudden, that I was washing this car just like my dad taught me to do on my 1965 Valiant… from the proper spray pattern, to starting from the top, to keeping grit out of the brush, to not letting the soap dry, to using the right chamois, to giving it an extra rinse at the end. I was even under a shade tree, just like old times. Doing it exactly as he taught me, with a car he’d never believe.
I wondered for a moment whether I’d done enough to bring my kids into my world, rather than joining them in theirs. I’d never have believed it at the time… that I’d grow to become grateful for having to do all those things I didn’t want to do. He raised me to do things in his world, not just grow up in my own. Had he left those weekends up to me, I’d have found something to do to keep busy. But I can guarantee you that whatever I would have done would have no value for me today. Not like this.
And as I used my iPhone to pull the car back into the garage by itself, I thought about what I would give to maybe just hold the light one more time.