Well, Long Island got hit with another load of snow—on Superbowl Sunday, no less. Wasn't nobody goin' nowhere, so there was nobody comin' over to watch the game and eat the ton of hot-wings, chips and salsa-dip we got. And now, on Monday morning, temps are in the low twenties and the wind-chill factor is down to a zillion degrees below zero, so shoveling out will be an eyeball-frosting ordeal. I hope the kitchen pipes don't freeze up again; they haven't burst yet, but I do worry about that. Oh, how I hate winter. I really, really do.
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My faithful, 1915 Ford Model T waits patiently in the garage for the spring thaw. I love tinkering with the thing and it's a playful puppy of a car that just thrives on attention. Sometimes it feels like, if I threw a ball, this little horseless carriage would run and fetch it. There are a few things that need to be done to it: the usual pre-season grease-job and oil-change, but lately, the garage has been just too finger-freezing, knuckle-busting cold to do any work in there. Funny; my hula hoop-age memory of enjoying snowball fights and building snowmen and igloos in my parents' front yard is vivid as this morning's arthritis pain—and in the slightly more mature age of Disco, mood-rings and pet-rocks, my frolic included skiing and snowmobiling—but those groovy days are as over as Sinatra's vocabulary.
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As I usually do on a daily basis, this morning I opened the interior door to the attached garage and sniffed for the odor of gasoline before snapping on the light. Though I haven't flown an airplane in well over a decade, I still have the pilot's thoroughly trained-in, obsessive fear of fire and it's likely as not my Flivver's gas tank predates the first world war. But the only noticeable vapor in there was my visible breath which, in a few minutes would freeze to crystals on my mustache. Did I mention how much I hate winter? Maybe, in a few weeks, I'll be able to roll open the big door at the other end and get some warm sunlight in here, but for today, the only door I open is on my Tin Lizzie and the springs creak loudly as I climb up into the front seat—and now my butt is freezing cold against the crackling faux-leather as I slide over behind the wheel—and if I stuck my tongue out and touched it to the brass nut in its center, I might be here till the spring thaw.
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At the risk of fusing my eyelashes together, I close my eyes and think back about a dozen years to the very first time I drove this 1915 Model T Ford... (Okay, now take your brain and imagine the sound of arpeggios being played on a harp and this scene dissolving into rippling waves as we do a flashback)...
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Drove my first Model T for the first time on this beautiful summer afternoon. It was delivered to my home yesterday and right off the trailer, had an almost empty tank, so there was no choice but to get some gas, though the nearest service station was a fair distance away and I've yet to master the Model T's non-standard controls. This would be a good time to be very careful.
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I pushed the car out onto the driveway, climbed aboard, double-checked the hand lever, spark and throttle—and discovered I had forgotten the ignition key in the house. Typical. I fetched the key, hopped back in, selected "battery" and she fired right up at a bare jab of my heel on the retro-fitted starter button—just boom, and she was running. That was nice.
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As I was sitting there, some guy driving down my street slowed down and yelled out his window, "Nice car!" First compliment. I'll probably remember that anonymous passerby the rest of my life.
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The brake light switch was stuck in the 'off' position and I hadn't wired up any turn signals yet, so there were no signals of any kind. I was a little uneasy about making the first drive without so much as a brake light, but the car needed gas and that was that.
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Well, with the engine purring, there was nothing to do but do it. I stepped on the left pedal, the low band groaned and we were off. I took it real easy and pulled over frequently to let traffic go by. With my practically non-existent experience and having heard so much about the awful brakes on these Brass-Era cars, I wasn't ready to try the upper end of the speed range just yet.
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Of course, I took tertiary backroads and so, managed to get lost in my own neighborhood. GPS is a wonderful thing to have. Good thing I had remembered to bring it along.
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It was pretty hot out and sweat was dripping into my eye and traffic was accumulating behind me and low gear was too low and high gear was too fast and just keeping the car under control was surprisingly hard work and where the heck was neutral on the left pedal? A rapidly approaching stop sign reminded me it would be better to keep my eyes on the road than on my foot. I pulled over to let a bunch of cars go by. Up to that point, I hadn't gotten the single finger salute, but nobody was giving me the upturned thumb, either. Wow, that engine gets hot! I didn't see any steam, so I guessed we were okay. Made a mental note to replace the radiator cap with a temperature-motometer.
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Well, I made it to the gas station and of course, pulled up to the wrong side of the pumps 'cause the door doesn't open on that side. After working out the geometry in my head, I steered the requisite figure-8's and that was probably kind of entertaining to the other motorists on the apron. A brass Model T looks incongruous just sitting there, so the fat, bearded guy with the goggles turning tight circles in the bucking antique car must have looked just hysterical. The gas station attendant was very curious and direct. "What did you pay for that?" I'd learn in the future to evade that frequent, invasive question by quipping, "Hey, if I didn't tell my wife, I'm sure as hell not going to tell you!"
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The tank took almost nine gallons, so yeah, she was close to empty. Barely touching the starter button got the engine running again (Thank you, Lord). On the way home, my shifting was still lousy, with a lot of shudders and chattering. After a while, I learned how to get high gear engaged with just a single "clack." Throttle off and feather the pedal upward— "Clack." Guess that must be the right way to do it.
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Suddenly, I got a big breath of real hot air through the pedal slots in the floorboards and the whole car was shuddering. Was I overheating? Engine quits. Oh no, NOW what did I do? Did I ruin the engine? Okay, okay; don't rush, don't do anything stupid—just coast to the curb and stop, then figure it out. Now, left to right cockpit check, just like in an airplane: Hand-brake, spark, throttle, ignition. Jab the starter. And just like that, she's up and running again. Guess we're okay (Thanks again, Lord). Maybe I just got too slow in high gear and stalled it? Man, this sure ain't easy.
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When I got home I took an extra circle around my block and let the neighbors have a few squawks of the Klaxon. Got some waves and smiles. That felt good. Still, it's gonna take a heck of a lot of practice before I'm really comfortable driving a Model T.
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I let the car sit and cool in the driveway before putting her in the garage and got a folding chair, a squeeze bottle of Brasso polish and a handful of dish towels—my wife will kill me if she finds out. Turns out it's not real smart to hand-polish a brass radiator immediately after driving the car. Nevermind that—I got the Model T there and back in one piece, got a tankful of gas and now I can just take baby steps in my own neighborhood until I'm comfortable driving it. From here on, it only gets easier—right?
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Well, my eyes didn't freeze shut during the flash-back, but the cold is seeping into my bones. Guess I'll step out of the time machine, head upstairs, push the button on the Keurig and sip at my mug while futzing around on Facebook—I've got friends and family to bore the heck out of. Good grief, how I hate winter.
