Let's Work on Cars...

 This is a photo from the old collection of family photos assembled by my cousin Mary Lou and her husband Mike. An unidentifiable man works on a Ford automobile. I believe it's a very late 1930s or possibly 1940s model. There's a lot to take in on this photo. 

First off if I stood on my car's bumper it would probably come off or the plastic it's made of would shatter. My little hybrid car (yeah this is that dreaded liberal virtue signal running up the flagpole) is a discontinued model because some very smart man decided to lower gas mileage requirements a few years ago and automobile manufacturers made a decision to build only cars larger than WW2 armored tanks that get about the same MPG so I probably could not get the part and if I could it wouldn't be the same color as my car is now.  

Also if I look under the hoods of my car or truck, both coming up on 10 years old or more I see warnings that if it's not yellow don't touch it. They are talking about oil dipsticks, windshield washer fluid and such that have yellow handles. I would imagine on a new car if you touch something you are not supposed to your phone dings. 

This guy's arm has disappeared completely up to his shoulder as he grapples with some demon in the very depths of the engine compartment. There's no way my arm will penetrate to this depth and if it could get past the inner circle of unknown auto part hell it would quickly encounter the Earth's surface because generally vehicle clearance is so poor that an encounter with a large racoon on a Texas Farm Road will end with severe damage or completely upends the car.  Don't ask how I know this because that's another blog post. 

Also it's amazing to me that he's doing this and I don't see his phone propped up somewhere showing a youtube video of how to do whatever it is. I suppose they had youtube and maybe they had phones because the number of views these videos get indicate they have been watched a lot, a long time or something. 

Oh yeah, one more thing about the hybrid. Unlike this old Ford (hybrid is a Ford) it has been very maintenance (knock on wood) free. I've taken it to my guy a few times for an occasional minor issue and I'll think and tell him "hey why don't you check the such and such for me, it's never been checked." He'll call me back and say, "It didn't have on of those."   

After all this talk about about modern cars I am a little closer to cars like the old ones than you think. My neighbor to the north east a yard over has hauled several rusting hulks of similar vintage onto his property. He must consider these valuable because he put them close to his house which is better than along the generous back border we share and if I stand on small stool at the kitchen window I can just see their roofs above the privacy fence me and the side neighbor share. 

If I can't work on cars I figure watching these old cars sit in the yard will give me something to do for the rest of my life.