The first page of a 35-year-old spiral notebook I found in the storage shed behind my house began with a reminder: “Ford radiator clogged. Water up every 70 miles. New one costs $65. Chevy radiator leaks. Cost $24 to repair.”
Those Ford and Chevy trucks belonged to my youngest son, Mark Harrison Stith. He had a summer job roofing houses to help pay his way through college. He drove whichever truck was running, assuming one of them was running.
Mark had plenty of get-up-and-go but he was severely short of experience. Capital, too. And clogged, leaky radiators were not his only problems.
Here is his report, written in the mid-1980s, of problems faced and lessons learned that summer in the School of Hard Knocks:
***Battery falls into engine upside down in Chevy. Kills battery and busts fuel line.
***Pour oil into gas tank by mistake and have to take off fuel pump and filter and clean. Take fuel pump off on North Hilton’s parking lot where I’m offered $2 for my truck. People can check out for oil leaks.
***Got stuck at dump pile. I pull up to a huge trash pile and unload off the back, trapping the truck between the trash heaps. While spinning my wheels the carburetor sticks on full blast. New radiator begins to leak. Bulldozer pushes me out.
***Back to Advance Auto where I buy a spring set I didn’t need and “Stop Leak” that doesn’t work.
***Driving to work my left rear wheel comes off on busy four-lane highway at 55 mph. Make it to the median. Catch ride home, leaving truck’s rear fender out in highway six inches. Pop drives with me in Chevy and we get the truck towed after unloading some old shingles. Repair takes two weeks of night work. Total cost, after bosses pay $50 tow bill, $65 for parts. Also, the man took back his $2 offer.
***Chevy’s carburetor warps under heat and gas shoots out into engine. At least four times I remove carb and apply gasket sealant. This always works for two days. New carb: $58.
***Cat urinated in Chevy cab. Smell takes a week to go away. Make that three.”
***Battery dies in Ford. I replace the solenoid. Connect it wrong and it engages starter constantly. Uncle Sherm fixes it.
***In the morning it doesn’t start. Have to pull with Chevy up hill twice to jump start. Dies on highway. Spent two hours diddling with system. Try to recharge battery at garage. Look out and see a trooper calling a tow truck. Run back and sir him into pushing my truck off the road for me.
***Hit $900 central air conditional at roofing site, bend the coils. New coil, $144.00 plus $45.50 labor. I pay one third.
***Run over boss’ hammer. Crack the handle. He had warned me to never mess with his beloved Excalibur. Who knows how much “emotional damage” will cost me.
***Leaving to take radiator to be fixed in Chevy when I notice Ford’s door is open. Chevy’s battery is half shot so can’t cut it off. No emergency brake so I leave it running and out of gear. I figure I’ll jump out of the Chevy, shut the Ford door and catch the Chevy on the roll. I get the door, turn around, and find the Chevy in the ditch across the street. Can’t get it out.
***Chevy stalls at light that turns green every time Halley’s Comet slides by. Gas station guys help me push it out of the way. I try to jump it off, once, twice, 67 times. until, at long last, I run out of incline. I go to a phone to try to call my boss ’cause I’m late for work.
No change for the phone.
The diary ends there. I don’t know why. Maybe it was time for Mark to go back to the other school, the easy one.
Postscript: Mark owns RoofCrafters, a roofing company he started when he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1988. He earned a history degree from UNC. At the School of Hard Knocks he majored in Problem Solving.