Before I begin with this edition of my blog, I would like to apologize for not putting out a posting this past Friday. I was busy most of them day with some personal medical issues and the blog had to go on the back burner. Hopefully I will now be back to three times a week. Also, I again would invite you to visit the blog of Mrs. Mary Earle. The address is http://mary-marysmoments.blogspot.com/

          And finally, there is a place at the bottom of the blog for comments but it asks you to submit a profile. If you would like to say something to me my e-mail is oldirishguy51@yahoo.com In case you wondered, I am an old Irish guy and I started using that e-mail waaaayyyy back when I was 51. On to today’s post.

          My favorite professor of all time told us that our two most important tools in our ministry would be our personal libraries and our vehicles. The books to give us information and the vehicles to get us to where we can do ministry. Over the years, my library was always worth way more than whatever vehicle I was driving. I needed the information in the books. The vehicles I could keep running one way or another.

          Many of my ministry memories include various cars. I have consumed countless cups of coffee driving to hospitals or nursing homes or wherever. I have become an artist at the task of driving a manual shift while digging a cheese burger out of a McDonalds’ bag. My cars have been rolling offices, almost as cluttered as the desk in my office. They have been my refuge at times, my place of prayer, the place I have put together sermons in my mind. I have pulled over and slept in my car and, on a few occasions, fallen asleep before I pulled over. For all the tens of thousands of miles I have driven I have gotten very few tickets, although that has been mostly good fortune. Like most pastors, I have never made a lot of money. Because of this I have had a series of cars that already had their best years behind them when I took ownership. Every once in a while, I got a car that actually had a working radio. Most leaked, either coolant or oil, usually both. Sometimes they leaked gas, too. Hoses and belts were normally well rotted by the time I started in on the car. For years, I drove on Maygo tires, as in ‘may go at any time.’ I thought ‘Fix-a-Flat’ was a great invention. I became very good at jerry-rigging exhaust systems, by-passing heater cores, patching leaky hoses and all the rest of the things you must do to keep a heap no one else would think about driving on the road. All have left a memory. Some are special memories. And they all had a name. Every car or van I have ever owned has been named Betsy. For no good reason. But, every time I get into my car and put the key in, I think to myself, “Come on, Betsy. Start!”

          I think that over the next few blogs I would like to list these partners in ministry. I do this so that one day, when the exhaust fumes reach the critical level in my brain and my memory fades, there will be a record.

          Our ministry, and our marriage, started in 1975. I had a 1967 Impala at the beginning of that year, but it died from rust poisoning. It was followed by a ‘69 Maverick. We traded that for a ‘62 Volkswagen van. (Yes, I know. I was a real wheeler-dealer. Thought I was, anyway.) The clutch was nearly burned out when I got it and we finally had to park it till I could get the part. While parked, someone helped themselves to it. It was followed by a ‘67 Buick wagon. All that was in 1975. In 1976 we had a ‘66 VW Beetle that threw a rod, a ‘62 Rambler that did what Ramblers did back then, which means it died, a ‘66 Ford Fairlane, a ‘64 Biscayne and, finally, a ‘73 Vega. Of all those cars, most would think that the Vega was the worst. But it took us 120,000 miles in three years, so it was actually a great deal. The only problem we ever had with it was I broke the wiper arm off trying to get the frozen wiper blade off the frozen windshield. After that I would simply drive down the road with my left arm out the window holding the wiper arm and manually wipe my windshield. Sometimes you have to improvise. The 66 Fairlane also deserves a quick mention. We were living in Tennessee at the time. I bought the car for $100 and it ran pretty well. Except I had to fill it up every 60 miles or so. I couldn’t figure it out. The gauge always said FULL and I would rap on the tank and it was always full, but I was left stranded a number of times. Finally, I got a fellow in our church to look at it. There was nothing wrong with the car, but the gas tank had been sectioned off. I was only able to put 3 gallons of gas in it. The other 15 gallons was moonshine. It had been a car used to transport moonshine and they used the gas tank to fool the police. It still had a load of ‘shine in it.

          In ‘78 we bought a ‘69 Impala. Just in time, too, because the Vega’s engine was finally packing it in. As a second car we purchased a 1968 Ford LTD that was immaculate on the inside and unbelievably battered on the outside. It looked like it had been one of those cars used in a charity sledge hammer beating. We went to a movie one night and were stopped five times by various police agencies. They would search the car and then send us on our way. None of the officers would answer my question of why we were being stopped until the last fellow. He told me a car fitting the LTD’s description had been involved in a robbery/shooting. I stared at him and said, “A car fitting this thing’s description?“ He laughed and said that yes, there was evidently another car just like it somewhere. They finally caught the criminals. They were drug addicts. To drive a car like that you either had to be addicted to drugs or incredibly broke.

          In ‘79 we bought a ‘71 Ford Pinto. That was in the years that they were called rolling bombs because of the location of the gas tank. After that, also in ‘79, we bought another Vega, this one a ‘74. It was one of the worst cars I ever had. It does have one memory, though. We lived in Florida and a hurricane blew in. The storm surge ran sea water way up our river and for days after people were catching sea creatures in the Miami river. I was driving somewhere one night and ran over a sea turtle on the highway. The thing was almost as big as my Vega and nearly flipped the car. The turtle died. Personally, I would have rather the turtle lived and Vega died.

          After the Vega, in 1980, we bought a 1973 Ford van. It looked great, being Florida and all, but it was a delivery van and only had one seat in it and no carpet. I wanted to take our church Youth group somewhere in it, so I told them all to bring lawn chairs. Some people think I am wise and thoughtful now, but that is only because I made my really stupid mistakes decades ago. I got all those kids in the van and started out. The first stop sign I came to they all started sliding in their lawn chairs and wound up crunched up against the dashboard.

          After the van came a series of company cars, which I had access to because I was a bi-vocational minister and my secular job was running an auto parts store. That ended with the purchase of a ‘71 Nova in 1982, just before we returned to school. Great car, that Nova. Until it broke. Literally. Broke in half just behind the front seat. Another story for another time. After that was a 1975 Honda Civic, which was an okay car. The only two problems the Civic had was that it had a bad starter and had to be pushed to start. (manual transmission) I did get a starter to put into it, but my hands were too big to get into the place they needed to get into. We were living out in the boondocks of Florida and I could not find anyone who would put the thing in for me. (“Don’t work on none of them rice burners, preacher boy. Get yerself a ’Merican set of wheels and Ah’ll hep ya out.”) The other thing was that the driver side door was hanging by just one hinge. You had to lift the whole door to shut it. That was really hard when you were by yourself and you had to start it. Since there are no hills in Florida I would have to get out of the car and start pushing it while the transmission was out of gear, left hand holding the door up and on and right hand on the steering wheel. Once I had sufficient speed I would jump into the car, lifting the door into closing position and slamming it shut with my left hand while clutching with my left foot, shifting with my right hand and steering with my right knee. Then, door closed, transmission in second and the car going more or less in a straight line, I would pop the clutch. Sometimes it would start, sometimes it wouldn’t. If it didn’t I would do it all over again.

          I am going to end this for today, I think. Hopefully, I will continue with this narrative in a few days. There was, however, one thing all these cars had in common; I kept a tool box in the trunk. Yes, sweet memories.