Changing Oil

I have a dark, dirty secret.

I'm one of those men who, dare I say it?

I know next to nothing about how a car engine works. There I said it.

I'm not proud of it, and when relating the merits or problems of various types of engines, or even worse, when the old Ford versus Chevrolet versus Chrysler debates come up in conversations with groups of men, I "suddenly" remember something I should be doing elsewhere.

It's not the problem it was twenty years ago though, because, well, you can buy a Chrysler that's made in Canada now. And Chrysler is no longer an American company, the company is owned by Germans.

You can buy a Ford made in Mexico or a Toyota made in Ohio, or a Mercedes SUV made in Alabama.

That has little to do with me not knowing the mechanics of the internal combustion engine, but it has stopped a lot of the talk about cars and how they work. It's just not the topic of conversation among men it was a generation ago. Also, cars are so complicated now that the average guy can no longer do work on his own cars any more.

Don C., my Dad, was a really cool guy. He was tall, dark, and handsome. He had a great sense of humor, but he was a quiet man too. (That's a pic of Don C. He looks angry here, but he wasn't, he wasn't a very "smiley" person, but he was very nice.)

I was always a bit intimidated by him, though he never really did anything intimidating to me. He just always seemed so sure of himself where I pretty much have never been very sure about myself with regards to anything.

Don C. was pretty good with cars. He could do lots of basic maintenance, but he knew his limits and would take our cars to the pros for serious repairs.

My older brother Paul had an interest in, and also an innate understanding of how cars worked. And my maternal Grandfather (we called him Papaw Hinton) was an auto mechanic for many years.

I got zilch. Nothing. Nada. In fact, I never really cared or wanted to know how the inside of a car works. Electronic devices like computers and games and such, yes; cars no.

So here's this wealth of knowledge about cars in my family, and I couldn't care less about them.

But hey, I was a teenager, and I wanted to fit in, and I wanted to impress Don C. (what kid doesn't want to impress his Dad, right?)

In Louisiana at the time, late 1970's, we could get our driver's license at the age of 15.

When I got mine and started driving, Don C. decided I need to learn a few basic things about cars.

Don C.'s vehicle was a 1975 Ford F-150 custom, a pickup truck. And he needed to change the oil in it one day and decided it was time for me to learn to do that simple task. (That's a picture of the truck I talk about here, with me at nineteen, a few years after this incident I talk about today.)

Only problem, my reputation, or lack thereof, with cars preceded me, and when my brother Paul and his buddies found out that John (me) was going to learn to change oil in a motor vehicle, well, I ended up with an audience.

Don C., Paul, and several of Paul's friends. They all had that "this is going to be good" look on their faces in anticipation.

Lucky for me, changing oil was an easy thing to do back then. That full-sized pickup had lots of room to reach around the motor in the engine compartment, and it was high enough off the ground to easily slide under there and take out the oil plug on the bottom of the oil pan to drain the old oil.

I'm taking all the funny remarks and jokes at my expense in stride because this turned out to be a really easy job. Wuh-hoo!

I felt like that dude hanging off the front of the Titanic in that movie. "King of the world!"

All because I changed the oil in my Dad's pickup truck.

But then I was handed me a golden opportunity to get back at everyone for their picking on me.

Don C.'s patented process for oil changing was this: open oil fill cap on top of motor, drain oil into pan from bottom of motor, re-plug drain hole in bottom of motor, change oil filter out for a new one, put in five of the six needed quarts of oil into the motor at the oil fill cap on the top of motor.

Now before he would pour in the last quart, Don C. always ran the motor for a few minutes to get the new oil filter filled with oil. This would (theoretically) make room in the oil pan for that sixth and final quart.

So I'm sitting there in the cab of the pickup truck, letting it run. This pickup had a loud exhaust system on it, so I could see Don C., Paul, and Paul's compadres standing around the open hood of the truck and talking, but because of the noise, I couldn't hear them or join in the conversation.

Just then, one of them pointed at something in the engine compartment, and all four of them leaned way over into the engine area.

I calmly smiled, and HONKed! the horn with a good long blast.

I'm laughing as I write this, remembering the one and only time I ever scared the snot out of my Father; not to mention getting a world-class jump out of my brother and his two friends. Now, in my mind, they were all airborne for about fifteen seconds, but in actuality, they just all four jumped back a step when I honked the horn.

It took them a minute to calm down, but eventually they had to laugh with me.

Because one hard and fast rule of manhood is that you don't ever let the other person know that they've gotten under your skin. You laugh it off.

Otherwise they'll pick on you about that forever.

But that was a funny day. They were making fun of me and turned around and handed me the perfect chance to pay them back.

Revenge really is a dish best served cold.