This Way To My Blog

This Way To My Blog

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Okay So I'm A Copy Cat

Reading Jack's account of car trouble in the cold country brought memories. Of course it wasn't cold during our car trouble, thank goodness because we had to leave the car window down from  the valley to San Antonio. Mel was very good at repairing cars but he still worried about problems and never really wanted to travel far from home. His best army buddy was getting married and he had come to our wedding but Mel wanted to back out going. I insisted we needed to go so we did. Everything was fine on the way to the valley and over in to Mexico to the reception. We spent the night in a motel and left the next morning to come home. I can't explain which part went out but Mel was able to do some rigging to make it work. He had a tube running from under the hood to inside the window where he rode on the passenger side. He had to blow into a bottle if I remember right to keep the car going while I drove. We only stopped long enough for him to call his brother and tell him if we don't get back to San Antonio in so many hours come looking for us. We had to drive slow and it was tiring for Mel but we made it. When we got to the south side of San Antonio we stopped at a  store to call his brother so he didn't come looking for us. I have a picture of the car with the tube running out from under the hood to inside the car and into Mel's mouth. Also pictures of all of us in front of the swimming pool at the motel. Finding them would be like a needle in a hay stack. What a memory! Guess you would have had to have been there. lol

9 comments:

Dar said...

It's something, what triggers a memory. I can't imagine the trip that must have been. You mentioning a pool picture just triggered an old memory of a photo taken on the east coast...not going there but it was fun.
As for animal crackers, I know what you mean. lol
It's been bitter cold in the many minuses up north. Stay warm down there. My lil sis is in Ft.Worth and said it's cold and icy.
Glad Butter didn't give you the ol TX boot.
Have a great weekend. I'm starting mine early. Need a rest~

jack69 said...

I have done some wild ones, but Mel takes the cake. He was assisting the fuel pump or the spark advance on the distributer. What a dude to rig that.
It is funny when Merle haggard came out with Shade Tree Fix it man, Sherry said, "That is YOU!" I reckon it was Mel too. LOL

In life there are things one would have liked and one would have been to have met Mel & talked.
Always love your entries.

TARYTERRE said...

Sounds like the fix worked. I LOVE stories like that.

TexWisGirl said...

that was some fix! how odd! :)

Paula said...

I have to add it was on a Sunday and there were no parts houses open in small towns back then.

Jean said...

Yeah back in those days the stores didn't stay open like they do now. Lol. Great post Paula. Jean

Lynne said...

Improvising at its finest! That brought back a memory of my ex and I driving thru a blinding snow in his little volkswagon bug. His windshield wipers broke and so we improvised by taking a yarn ball I had and rigging it across both wiper blades into the car where we each manually pulled. It helped but was very difficult for him to do his part because he was driving a stick shift and you only have so many hands, lol. Great story!

Lucy said...

Sounds like Joe. Used to be confident that he could always rig something up to fix what needed fixin. Not so much anymore.

Jon said...

I hope you can find the photos. That is a unique adventure!