What Dad Knows

A departure from my regular blog content. I told this story to my kids tonight.

When I was sixteen, I had my first car, a 1966 Thunderbird. It was older than I, and became a classic the year we bought it. My dad made me pay for half of it, and half of my monthly insurance. And he made me work on it whenever it was broken, which was nearly every weekend for a while. I think he knew going in that it would be an exercise in patience for me. It also served to keep me out of trouble, being under a car rather than running around with the neighborhood “riff-raff.” We put in a manual choke, replaced hydraulics in the windshield wiper system, and sealed a leak in the vacuum tubing. One morning we were pulling and replacing the starter solenoid. Of course he did most of the work, and I got to pass him wrenches, hold the light, and hear stories about how cars used to be much easier to fix back in the day.

As we were replacing the starter on the beloved vehicle, two of my more rough-cut neighborhood friends walked up. Metal-head drop outs, they were the scuzziest of the boys I hung out with in those years. They were brazen enough to swear and smoke in front of my dad. Dad, who often worked on cars with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a gallon coffee can of gasoline next to him (it is a great cleaner for greasy car parts) was doing exactly this when the boys approached, one with his own freshly lit cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

My dad treated them civilly, greeting them then asking them if they’d each hold a greasy car part, feigning the need for more hands to engage them…. I don’t know if you remember sixteen, but everyone I knew at that age was looking to evade parental units as a first priority, seek fun as a distant second, so the discomfort was palpable when these guys approached and found me with my dad. One of them noticed the can of gas and my dad’s cigarette.  With no cool in his voice, he registered out loud the danger inherent in such things.

My dad, without missing  beat said, “Nah, you know, cigarettes aren’t hot enough to light octane,” then he yanked a cigarette out of the mouth of the boy who had spoke, and tossed it into the can on the ground between them. The boys took two large, lightning steps backwards, raised their arms in front of their faces and gasped, bracing for the explosion.

The can said “pssst” as the lit cigarette hit the liquid – just as if it were water. The boys looked at each other in utter amazement and issued a battery of swear words, in gesture of appreciation, then nods that affirmed that my dad was almost as cool as he was crazy. My dad tried not to crack a smile, then said something nonchalant about needing to finish up this job on the car, and “see ya later,” issuing them an invitation to leave that they couldn’t refuse. They turned to wander off, but just before they were out of earshot, he said, “Now, don’t try that with a match or anything else that burns. A cigarette burns about 450 degrees, but a match or lighter, they’re about 700. They’ll blow you sky-high.” Then he turned toward the car and handed me the starter. I didn’t see those boys for a long time after that.