First-person America
By Blake Hurst, Dale Anema
TEENAGE ANGST
By Blake Hurst
WESTBORO, MISSOURI—State Senator Sam Graves has introduced a bill in the Missouri legislature to do away with our system of annual vehicle inspections. Sam argues that less than half of the states now have vehicle inspections, and statistics show that the accident rate in those states without inspections is no worse than those where inspections are still mandatory. He points out that only two percent of all accidents are caused by faulty equipment.
Sam is a good friend, but this time I hope his bill doesn’t pass. My libertarian impulses agree with Sam, but you see I have two daughters: ages 19 and 17. Sam’s daughters, on the other hand, are 8 and 2. When Sam has adolescent males roaring into his driveway at all hours of the day and night to visit and, God forbid, drive off with his precious Megan or Emily, he’ll begin to lose some of those libertarian urges. Now that my daughters attract multitudes of worn-out pickups steered by inexperienced drivers, I believe that inspections should be carried out monthly. I also favor random checks of tie rods, seat belts, king pins, and brake pads on each and every Saturday night.
When prom night comes for Sam in the year 2007, he’ll spend a sleepless night thinking about turn signals and bald tires. (He’ll also worry about other things, which is why our house groans under the weight of numerous books by Bill Bennett, required reading for all who live under my roof and eat my food.)
The first time I met my wife’s parents I was stopped in the driveway with the hood up on my car, adding oil. While I was busy visiting with her folks, at least three different vital fluids were dripping out of my old wreck. Julie’s parents, always gracious, kept whatever doubts they might have had to themselves, but 20 years later, I’m not handling things nearly as well. My eldest daughter’s latest beau is clean cut and drives a new pickup, but I’m wondering if he ignores recall notices.
Whenever I read a piece in a magazine making a libertarian argument on a social issue, I’m always sure of one thing: The author has no daughters. Recently, I drove my daughter to Kansas City and waited in the parking lot while she and a friend attended a concert. As I watched several thousand adolescents stumble by my car, dropping enough aluminum beer cans in their wake to build an airliner and using language that made me blush, my adolescent flirtation with Ayn Rand was only a distant and not-so-fond memory. Personal freedom is a fine thing, but not for those who have any contact whatsoever with my two personal hostages to fortune.
Sam’s bill died before the end of the last session, but an amended version, calling for inspections bi-annually, has passed the Senate this year and is bogged down in the House. It’s final disposition is unclear, but since the state and thousands of repair shops share in $42 million of fees annually, and another $35 million is spent repairing problems found in inspections, Sam is likely to lose this session as well.
Of course, I’m sure to lose as well. As much as I would like the girls never to venture away from home except to return copies of Jane Austen to the library, life doesn’t work that way. It is a temptation to think that we can live apart from the world in our rural community, but that isn’t possible. I guess I wouldn’t have it any other way. But I’m not having much fun. My daughters are adults, or nearly so, and neither their mother nor I, nor any laws that the Missouri legislature can pass, can protect them from the dangers that lie ahead. My mother, whose faith I envy, reassures me often by quoting Proverbs: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."
Whenever I read a piece in a magazine making a libertarian argument on a social issue, I'm always sure of one thing: The author has no daughters.
A fine sentiment, but it really isn’t my daughters’ training that I’m worried about. If my recent parking lot exposure to my daughters’ peers is any indication, they aren’t spending much time reading Proverbs or Bill Bennett. And my mother’s faith, admirable as it is, couldn’t insulate her from worries caused by my own adolescence. Within 12 months of the day the State of Missouri awarded me a driver’s license, her hair turned white.
Blake Hurst is a regular contributor to The American Enterprise.
YARDMEN
By Dale Anema
LITTLETON, COLORADO—My work as a field mineral landman and retail site locator the past 20 years has taken me to all 48 continental states, and I generally get about a quarter-million miles out of my cars. So I’ve spent a fair amount of time in junkyards.
Most junkyards offer the options of either searching the boneyard for the needed part and using your own tools to extract it, or having a "yardman" locate and extract the part—which costs about twice as much, but still about a fifth of a new one. Since I don’t travel with a full complement of tools, I generally opt for the yardman. Typically we climb into a partially gutted yard car and bounce around the yard looking for the elusive part.
Most yardmen have visited more than one tattoo parlor and haven’t had extensive bridge work, but are good-natured and kind while plying their craft. Parts that break usually have an inherent weakness and are in great demand; it often takes ingenuity to find a suitable replacement part, which occasionally is a different shape and size than the original. Sometimes the yardman consults the parts manual to see which years of which vehicles might contain a useable part, but a good yardman uses the manual only as a tool and not the final word. Manuals often don’t list all suitable parts, and those listed sometimes won’t fit. When a yardman points at a part and says, "That don’t look right" or "That should work if you waller off the back side," I have come to accept it as gospel.
Yardmen have little formal education, are not articulate, and make not much more than minimum wage, but they won’t last long as yardmen unless they have exceptionally strong constitutions and a good deal of common sense. Many of them limp or walk stooped over as a result of injuries and of lying askew on rough ground in all kinds of weather. Many have had brushes with the law over the years.
They drive old cars, live in trailers or similarly cheap housing, drink in rough beer bars, dress shabbily, and the women available to them usually aren’t the best looking or brightest. But most seem to have a certain quiet pride and inner peace. When I spend time with them I always think of nineteenth-century cowboys or Janis Joplin’s "freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose."
They talk and joke unabashedly. I’ve never heard one make excuses for his life or claim victim status. Instead, they do their jobs, go to their humble homes, drink beer, and laugh with their friends. Most of those I have talked to think welfare is destructive and particularly resent corporate welfare.
Yardmen have little formal education, are not articulate, and make not much more than minimum wage, but they won't last long as yardmen unless they have exceptionally strong constitutions and a good deal of common sense.
I was in Oklahoma City once on a Friday afternoon before Easter when the transmission in my 180,000 mile VW Rabbit broke irreparably. A new transmission at a dealership would be about $1,300, and Wednesday was the soonest one could be in town. I couldn’t find a used Rabbit transmission anywhere in town, but a junkyard in Chickasha, about 35 miles southwest of Okie City, had a Volkswagen Golf with a decent transmission. The yardman said the engine sat sideways in the Golf and the linkage was a bit different, but he thought it would work, though it might shift a bit funny. He had never put in a transmission before, but had taken out hundreds and was pretty sure he could do it. He lived next to the junkyard and could do the work in his garage after he got off work at 6 o’clock on Saturday. The cost: $75 for parts plus labor.
I ground my way along the turnpike in second gear, and it was 8 o’clock before Danny got started. There was an icy rain, and the Golf couldn’t be moved because its axles were gone. He had to work on the cold wet ground with the aid of his truck headlights. We spent the next 16 hours together as he worked his magic, talking and laughing. He had been married six years and had two kids. He rented his house from his boss and was just able to get by. Neither he nor his wife had ever voted. His parents and grandparents were all Democrats, so he thought he was probably one too, but he liked then-President Reagan. Danny was vehemently against welfare and abortion, and strongly for prayer in school and gun rights. His grammar was poor, but he was insightful and had an abundance of common sense. He finished at noon and asked me to join his family for Easter dinner. I had to get going and didn’t want to intrude. He accepted a tip only because he didn’t have change for a hundred-dollar bill.
The shifting pattern was a bit tricky, but the transmission was still working fine when I got rid of the car 80,000 miles later.
This is Dale Anema’s first published article.
