Rev it up!
Stories
Weekend Camping Trip by Flooded Ford
I had been working for a local construction firm on the site of a new skyscraper in my city. I got the job on the recommendation of two good high school friends, Jack Wilson and Andy Height. The three of us grew up together and graduated high school together in the early eighties. After high school Jack and I went off to college but Andy went to work for his dad in the construction business. All three of us had lost touch by the mid eighties. After college I tried my hand at several different small businesses all of which flopped. Jack passed the CPA exam on the first try and got a great paying job with a major accounting firm. He soon grew tired of the work and quit after three years. By the mid 90’s both Jack and I were living in poverty having had a string of bad jobs. Andy, on the other hand, was doing well in his father’s construction company. His firm had been awarded several major projects. By chance Andy and Jack met up one evening at the mall. After hearing Jack’s story Andy immediately offered him a job in the construction firm. Andy made sure that Jack knew that the job only paid "a working man’s wage" but at that point Jack would have taken anything. A few months later I signed up to do some temp work and found myself working in the warehouse at Andy’s company.
The three of us tried to hang out together on Friday’s right after work. We’d usually run over to a bar close to the construction site and knock off a few before we headed for home. One summer we planned a camping trip for a late July weekend. We decided to leave for the camp site immediately after work on that Friday. Jack volunteered to pick up Andy and me and another co-worker, Tom, and drive one car to work that morning and then on to the camping site. Usually we were required to park in the designated construction parking about four blocks from the actual construction site, but since Jack was going to have to take care of some personal business earlier in the day Andy let him park on site. Jack drove a beat up old 68 Galaxie 500. When he turned 16 in 1980 Jack’s grandparents gave him the car as a birthday gift. Although Jack was very sentimental about this car he didn’t have the money to take care of it. It had not aged gracefully.
There had been a light rain that afternoon and the humidity made the 90 degree temperature seem even hotter. There were still puddles all over the muddy construction site at quitting time. The four of us met in the site office and headed for the car together. By the time we got to there the bottoms of our work boots were covered in mud. As we approached the car Jack told us not to worry about the mud. He took off his hard hat that we were all required to wear on the site but the rest of us kept ours on. Jack opened the drivers side door and got in behind the wheel, Andy got in on the passenger side and Tom and I got in the back seat. I tried to scrape some of the mud off my boots before I got in but saw that the floor of the back seat was covered with clumps of dried mud and old news papers. As I landed in the back seat and pulled the door closed Jack slipped the key in the ignition and started to crank the engine. Jack had his mud-covered Redwing workboot cocked at about two o’clock on the gas pedal and had it pressed it down about half way. The engine tried to turn over but didn’t quite make it. This was nothing abnormal. It usually took two or three tries to get the thing to turn over. Andy and I were talking about a problem with a warehouse order that had been placed a week earlier when I realized that the Jack was still cranking the engine. We stopped talking and listened. Jack was obviously getting concerned. After the sixth try he scooted back further in the seat and sat up straight. He quickly moved his right foot from a two o’clock position to almost twelve o’clock, completely covering the pedal. He started to mutter to himself "come on baby." Before he tried to crank the engine again he gave the pedal three pumps, each about a quarter of the way down. We were all watching the scene. The engine would crank fine and would almost turn over. A couple of times it caught and chugged a little while Jack lightly pumped the pedal and muttered "come on girl", but the engine would soon die leaving only the red "Hot," "Alt," and "Oil" idiot lights glowing. Finally Tom said "I bet with this heat and humidity the thing has vapor locked. Why don’t you pump it a little more while your cranking and see if that will get more gas to the carb." Jack obliged and started cranking again. While the starter motor cranked away Jack pumped the pedal about half way down three times then let off a few seconds, give it two more big pumps and let off a few more seconds, then give it three or four more big pumps. The rhythm of the cranking was erratic. The car was trying desperately to start but just couldn’t. We all sat in silence.
Andy was getting frustrated at what seemed to be Jack’s feeble attempts at getting the car to start. Andy told Jack to get out and pop the hood. Jack opened the drivers door and got out of the car while Andy slid over to the drivers seat. Andy sat with his left boot on drivers side door sill and his right boot on the floor of the car. Jack left the ignition key in the "run" position so the idiot lights were still on. He popped the hood and took off the lid to the air cleaner and looked into the carb. Somehow the automatic choke had been set and was completely closed. "No wonder the car wouldn’t start" he thought. "It wasn’t getting enough air and the carb must have been completely flooded." Jack tried to push the choke open but it wouldn’t stay. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ball-point pen and stuck it in the choke to keep it open. Jack yelled back that the carb had flooded and asked Andy to try to start it. Andy was a take charge kind of guy and really didn’t have any sentimental attachment to the car at all. He placed his left foot on the muddy ground outside the driver’s door and planted his well worn and muddy size 13EE Wolverine laceup work boot firmly on the pedal in almost twelve o’clock position and smashed it down to the floor. His boot completely covered the pedal. He grabbed the key and jerked it over to "start" and kept it there. The engine cranked and cranked and tried to start. Jack signaled for Andy to stop for a second and made some adjustment to the carb. Andy tried it again. He smashed his huge boot to the floor and turned the key to crank. The longer the cranking went the harder it seemed that Andy pushed his boot to the floor. Andy began to swear at the car: "come on you piece of shit!" Finally after what seemed like an eternity the engine began to sputter to life. Andy let off the key, but kept the pedal floored. The engine chugged and chugged. Black smoke was billowing out of the tail pipe. Even though the engine was beginning to run faster Andy kept his boot planted on the floor. As the RPMs increased the engine began to run smoother and Andy began to rev the engine hard, gunning it with all his might. Finally the engine smoothed out. The rich smell of unburned gas filled the passanger compartment. Andy got out and walked up to the front of the car and told Jack he needed to get a new car. Andy moved on over to the passenger side of the car and got in. Jack took out the ball-point pen, put the cover back on the air cleaner and lowered the hood with a whomp and got back in the car. Before he got in, however, I saw the gas pedal. It was covered with mud. We got on the highway and headed for the camping site.