Tools you got to have them

As I walked out on my porch this morning, coffee in hand, I looked out on the forest floor and noticed all the standing water still around from yesterday’s rain. The greens of the trees and their leaves were outstanding. I smiled as I remembered trying to get a burn pile going yesterday only to be beaten down by the continuous rain that went on all day. I think I’ll try to do the burn pile again today. To do so I have to have the right combination of tools. I do not just go and put a match to a bunch of wet wood and expect it to start burning.
This got me to thinking about my belief that a person cannot have enough tools. And then following that thought, if a person has the tools they should try to have them nearby at all times. Like most people of my age, my family would usually take a summer vacation trip. This meant for me that six people were going to stuff themselves inside a 1957 station wagon and drive for three days to a camping destination. In those days there were no cell phones and very few phones along the highways to get help from anyone. So, my father would grab a small toolbox and fill it with anything he thought would be useful if the car broke down. There was a set of pliers, an adjustable wrench, a Flathead screwdriver and a Phillips head screwdriver. He attached a canvas bag to the front grill of the car which was filled with water for the radiator. He had gloves and a set of sockets, making sure that one of the sockets was the size of the lug nuts on the car. He brought a patch kit for the inner tube inside the tire. And then there were those items that I thought were unusual in the beginning that ended up being something I carry all the time. To begin with there was duct tape. Duct tape is a magical tool that can be used to tape up the radiator hose should it burst or crack. It also was used to patch the seat, that got torn during the trip, and a hold up the back taillight whose attaching screw had broken. I’m sure if you look at it many of you have used duct tape for a plethora of situations. My dad also brought along a wire clothes hanger. He could bend it shape it to hold on parts of the car that seem to fall off, this usually meant the muffler. I don’t know why the old car had such a problem keeping the muffler attached to the bottom of the car but it seemed like on every trip the muffler would come loose and the wire was used to keep the muffler attached until the trip was over. My dad also threw in a couple of flashlights with fresh battery sets so that if we broke down tonight I could hold the flashlight as a he cussed the engine department while repairing something that went wrong.
You would think with all that good training I would always have tools available while driving my car. Well while I was working I always owned a new car and it wasn’t long into my adulthood that cell phones came on the market. So, I had the capability of calling a tow truck or someone to help me. Well after moving out here on the tree farm I decided that I needed just one new vehicle. So, I went out and bought an old 1991 Ford pickup truck. There were several things wrong with it when I bought it and so after six months I had the truck running without any problems. During one of my first trips from the house I noticed that the temperature gauge went up very quickly. So I turned around and went back to the shop and I fixed the problem. During this time my wife bought me a small cell phone to use while driving the truck just in case it broke down and I needed to call her or a tow truck for help. So for the next several months any time I left the property driving the old Ford truck I had the cell phone with me. And during that time nothing really happened. But then I found myself in the need to drive about 20 miles to the local Home Depot and the only vehicle available was the Ford truck. So I took off and about 4 miles down the road, just to remind you this is a 2 lane country road, when I noticed that the water gauge had gone from normal to very hot, very quickly. So I pulled over on the side of the road, opened up the hood and scanned the engine compartment to see what the problem was. It didn’t take long for me to see that the brand-new heater hose I put on the radiator had come loose and therefore I was losing water quickly. It took me 5 minutes to figure this out and I think the total number of three cars passed me on the roadside. I realized that all I needed was a Flathead screwdriver to open , close and tighten the clamp on the radiator hose and I would be ready to drive on. But there was a problem; I didn’t have any tools in the truck or in the back bed of my old Ford truck. So I struggled and tried to use a dime as a Flathead screwdriver to tighten the hose clamp. I did have one guy stop and asked if I needed help and I told him that I needed a Flathead screwdriver and I would be fine. He looked at his truck and he could not find a Flathead screwdriver but he offered to trade vehicles if I would like to trade his vehicle for mine. He said he would be right back in a few minutes with a screw driver, but after 20 minutes I realized he wasn’t coming back. So, there I sat on the side of the road because I forgot to bring any tools or my phone with me. Finally the dime trick worked enough for me to get the radiator hose to stay on the radiator. Luckily I did have a gallon of water in the back of the truck and I was able to put it into the radiator. I then drove about 2 miles back towards the house before noticing the temperature gauge again began to rise. I pulled over the side of the road in front of a very old a small country house. There was an elderly gentleman sitting on his porch. I grabbed the container that I’ve used before and walked up to the gentleman and asked if I could get some water from his water hose. With all the grace and dignity of any man he stood up, he smiled at me and put his hand out to take the container from me. He turned around he said, “I have some water in the house and I will get it for you”. After about 10 minutes he returned with the container full of water. I thanked the man. Thanks to that man I was able to make it home. After getting home felt like kicking myself in the ass for not having my phone or a toolbox in that old truck.
I usually speak to my son in Sacramento California several times during the week. And, I relate to him the adventures that I experience out here in Texas. During all the years I’ve advised my son to get as many tools as he can. Yesterday, my son relayed to me his latest experience with tools. He explained that he had a light that was not working on his truck and he got the replacement part and put it on. But the blinker wasn’t working as it should and so he was going to take it back to a shop to have a mechanic look at. He put his bicycle in the back of his truck so that he could ride it to work after dropping the truck off. As he started his trip he thought he might just look at that replacement part and how it was put on again. He didn’t want to be embarrassed when he got to the shop and have them tell him he put it on the wrong way. So he grabbed a wrench and socket, one 10 mm socket, and checked the turn signal. Well, he discovered he had put it on the wrong way and so he changed it to the right way. And instead of heading for the mechanic shop he headed off for work. In driving to work he came upon a fender bender accident and noticed that one of the people standing at the side of the road was a Doctor that he worked with at the hospital. He pulled over and asked if the doctor was okay and if there was anything he could do. She related that she was okay but she was probably going to have to cancel all of her appointments because the bumper on her Prius was just hanging onto the car and was not drivable in that condition. She was going to call a tow truck and have it towed away. My son looked at the bumper and noticed that it was just one bolt just holding it onto the frame. He looked at the bolt and thought I might be the same size as the one socket that he had in his truck. So he looked at the wrench and socket and it was the same size of the bolt and nut that was holding the bumper onto the Prius. So he loosens and takes off the bolt, took the bumper off the car and put the bumper the back of his truck. He then headed off to work and so did the doctor. Clearly the thought of always having tools in the truck or the car came in handy on this occasion. I say one cannot have enough tools and so I reminded myself to put a set of tools in my vehicles, just in case I break down. Most trucks and cars these days have so much computer influence it is not likely that anyone can fix a car. But there still are a lot of places that you can reach and you can fix before sending it to mechanic shop. I still use many of the same tools that my dad did. I also carry duct tape and a wire hanger. And to be sure I carry a flathead and Philips head screwdriver along with a wrench and socket set.
Pops