Big Pink - 2

March 14, 2010

After all, as the all time driver I had to have a seat. Anyone else that comes along for the ride will have to sit in picnic style and that was it. Mr. Owner then had explained because it was not like a car, I had to in fact double clutch while changing gears of this non-automatic transmission wonder. That I did with roughly, two downs and up’s.

Big Pink shifted to the reverse mode. Cautiously glued to rear views I pulled out of the long driveway parking spot. This lasted about three seconds. I stopped, pulled the emergency brake, shifted Big Pink into neutral and said, “I’mm going to look at the back lights. I wanted to be sure no gaggle of men wagging blue fingers had reason to stop us.”

“This already looks insane, being the colour pink and all. I just don’t want us to be on the 11 o’clock news with several police car’s red, white and blue lights flashing in frantic fashion while they inspect Big Pink for anything they could find while using the tail lights not working as their excuse.” Years later this did happen with another car.

I opened the doors and exited Big Pink to check the aforementioned. I asked Dick to sit in the driver’s seat as I would call out the instructions to check out all the legalities of working everything as far as the lights were concerned. I opened the driver’s window asking Dick to stick his head out in case he couldn’t hear yelling directions.

I slid mmy ass out; Dick slid his ass in. I walked around the rear of Big Pink first and yelled, “LEFT TURN SIGNAL.” Although the lenses of said lights were dirtier than a babies first day of diaper operations, they worked none the less; lucky us. “RIGHT!” They also worked.

“Now pump the BRAKES!”I yelled while cupping hands over mouth for a more directional approach to Dick’s ears. Dick did it once. “DO IT A FEW TIMES!” I yelled. I wanted to be sure Big Pink wasn’t just faking or being nice to a potential new owner because miraculously, they worked every time. Dick in the driver’s seat pumped once more.

I walked to the front of the bus and gave signals to Dick for the left and right turn signals as well as the headlights to be turned on and off a few times. Everything worked! We were in business as they say. Isn’t that special? I was happy when kicking both front tires again just to make sure they didn’t blow the first time they’d run over a pebble or a few grains of sand piled too high for Big Pink to recover balance.

I asked Dick to keep Big Pink running and come on out with mme to look under the hood and everywhere else that mechanics can be checked by sight and sound. Dick was a car guy; may he rest in peace. A little side note/time out hear if you will; just a short one plea’s.

Dick sold lots of foreign and many quite expenseive vehicles. He knew engines and the mechanics of most cars. He fixed, kept in good shape his own convertible, burgundy, 12 cylinders, ’62 Jag XKE. When it came to go a bit further with these mechanical things I brought Dick along because he certainly in mmy opinion at least, was the mechanic!

MMy good buddy passed a few months ago with some strange disease that doc’s know little about to this day. He was only sixty one or thereabouts. The guy was a great friend. Again, I’ll pass a few of those Dick and I stories we shared as well. Most of them pretty funny. In the meantime, he joined mme as I waved to him to come outside Big Pink to continue this story; you still there? Follow the bouncing….

We opened Big Pink’s hood pretty easily. I looked for the long rod that would hold it open. There was none. Mr. Owner looked for a long stick instead. Remember, this isn’t your ordinary Dotson, Toyota or little plastic putt, putts. We had to do things a little differently in order to examine certain engine things. I guess having a stick was one.

After climbing up the mountainous two feet and on to the tall, sturdy front bumper, anyone could see that one could without too much butter, slide a little VW bug underneath the space between Big Pink’s underbelly and the road. Dick and I balanced ourselves while standing up there looking down into the muddy and blackened by greasy smoke environs of an almost empty space. “Beautiful,” I said.

It’s pretty amazing how small many of the engines of those days were and still powerful enough to work big moving pieces of metal like Big Pink. Remember again, Big Pink was all metal, not plastic like one would see even huge semi-trucks molded construction now days.

Big Pink was heavy no matter how one looked at it. Her engine after the half hour or so it was still running, sounded good. She had no oil burning which meant no white exhaust coming out in a continual flow of OH NOOO! She didn’t even leak any oil at least from what Dick and I could tell; not yet anyway. That was a first good sign.

We jumped off the big bumper that could probably hold a cow, three piglets, and the big horse dog next door. We figured this out after jumping off because the shocks of Big Pink didn’t even budge. “SHOCKS,” we both chimed in unison. Yes, fortunately when almost walking upright underneath Big Pink we checked around all four tires to see in fact if there were any shocks or something like it; there were.

They were also very muddy as were most things underneath Big Pink. I asked Mr. Owner if indeed Big Pink was involved in any one of those motor rallies one hears about where any kind of terrain may have to be traversed in order to reach the finish line; including that of mud holes long and deep enough like something on the order of the LaBrea tar pits but not having tar. While I thought he’d find that quite amusing he had a stoical look on his face. So much for comic interlude

Dick and I continued our search for wrong. We checked out the drive shaft; put our fingers around the transmission, U-joints, oil pan and such. I’ll not tell you how those looked or felt. All I can say is that it was a big 1962 bus and leave it at that. Everything was working I said so let’s stop here. It was time to go for the first ride to see if all the nuts and bolts were still holding what they were supposed to hold.

Mr. Owner was standing just outside the entry doors with us. At this point we all went back inside. Again I crawled in while sliding the same body part into the driver’s seat. I pulled the lever/handle connected to the two vertical and narrow window doors to close them. They squeaked like those you may remember hearing when being driven to school in yellow buses of those and still present days.

I always wondered at that sound of metal moving metal. It wasn’t until later years that the guess of rubber bushings surrounding those metal movements in order to cushion or save wear and tear of said parts may have been what caused that sound. After a while the wear and tear sound was the wear tearing both metal and rubber to pieces.

Big Pink was revved up slowly but with more confidence than ever before. With a little help from said driver she began backing up and headed out to the street once again. She felt like the big heavy thing she was. I’mm sure if I had this same experience before joining the military I’d have become one of their Sherman Tank drivers or at least a Bradley personnel carrier navigator. Her size was pretty daunting.

To Be Continued: