Car Trouble Part 2: Get a Rope

If you need to catch up, you can read up on the resurrection of my dad's van here.  That old van carried us around for several years.  She was a workhorse.  She was also a jerk sometimes.  In the Fall of 1994, my dad decided it was time for us to make the move from Mississippi to Pennsylvania.  We had a lot of relatives in PA that we hadn't seen in a very long time, so my Dad thought it would be good for us to get to know them.  We packed as much of our stuff as we could fit into our van and hit the road.

Somewhere in Virginia, our headlights started to go dim and the van started to die.  We were able to take a quick exit before she decided to shut off completely.  We tried to start it up again, but there was no response.  My dad quickly concluded that the battery was dead, but he didn't know why.  We popped the hood and noticed that the alternator belt was really loose.  Ah-ha!  Without the alternator working, it was only a matter of time before the van completely drained the battery.  Now we just needed to figure out why the belt was loose.  On closer inspection, we found that one of the two brackets that held the alternator in place had actually broken.

The bottom alternator adjustment bracket snapped.

So, there we sat with a dead battery and a busted alternator bracket.  It was late at night, so no stores were open.  It was also 1994, so Googling the nearest Wal-Mart wasn't even an idea yet.  One of the advantages of my dad being in a wheelchair was that he always had 2 spare car batteries with him if we needed them.  That might sound funny and unusual, but I can't tell you how many times we ended up pulling one of the batteries out of his chair to use in a vehicle.  The downside of this situation was that, with no alternator, it would only be a short matter of time before his battery died too.  Even if we used both of them, we couldn't make it to PA with no alternator.  We needed to get that alternator fixed.  My dad, being the genius he was, had a great idea to rig up a rope that would pull the alternator tight enough to keep tension on the belt.  It sounded simple enough.  We tried several configurations with the rope, but we couldn't find one that would keep enough tension on the alternator belt when we tied it off.

Plenty of access, but not much room to sit!

One unique feature about these old vans is that you can get to the engine from the interior of the vehicle.  There was a huge engine compartment cover that provided plenty of access for, say, anyone needing to rig a rope to hold tension on the alternator.  We ran the rope to the interior of the van and tied it off to my dad's chair.  It worked at first, but after only a minute or two, we noticed that the alternator wasn't working again.  We just couldn't keep enough tension on the rope.  My dad wanted to make sure this solution at least had potential, so he suggested that I sit in the passenger side floorboard and just try to hold tension on the rope for a few minutes.  I crawled in, wrapped the rope around my arm, and leaned back to pull the rope tight.  We fired up the van again.  It seemed to be working.  We let it run for about 10 minutes to be sure.  It worked perfectly.  We shut the van off and stared at each other silently for a few minutes.  We all knew what had to be done, but nobody wanted to say it.  My dad asked me one last time: "Are you sure we don't have any bungee cords in the van".  Nope.  I looked everywhere.  After a few more minutes of silent contemplation, he finally asked me if I thought I could hold the rope until we got to PA.  It was "only another 6 hours".  Saying "no" meant that we'd sit on the side of the road until morning.  Even then, we'd still still have to find some other solution.  I agreed.  I got as comfortable as I could in the passenger floorboard, my face practically in the dashboard.  My sister closed up the engine compartment as tightly as she could, fired up the van one last time, and off we went.

An hour or so into it, I started to drift off.  I still don't know how I managed to fall asleep, but I did.  My dad realized something was up because the headlights started to go dim.  He shouted "Dave!  The rope!".  I snapped out of it and tugged on the rope again.  The headlights came back to life.  This happened at least another 3 or 4 times over the next several hours.  It was painful pulling that rope tight.  I was shifting positions and switching hands on the rope every 15 minutes.  After a few hours, the pain turned to numbness.  It was probably one of the most difficult things I've ever done - definitely in the top 5.

We did eventually make it to PA without another breakdown.  My dad told me how proud he was, and that I'd be telling my kids someday about that trip.  At the age of 14, having kids wasn't even on my radar, but I took his word for it.  My arms healed, we fixed the alternator bracket, and life went on.  That trip is a simple, yet powerful reminder to me of just how temporary life's challenges are, and how we can overcome situations that seem so insurmountable.  It isn't always easy, but I do believe that anything is possible.  I also think that life's challenges actually seem a bit easier when we've already overcome something more difficult.  I learned later in life that God never puts us through a test without giving us the tools or resources to handle it.  I also learned that those tools might not be what we think we need.  Whatever challenges you face, just know that you can make it...and life will be better.

What It's Like

I recently read a story about a woman who got caught selling her food stamps online.  While I don't endorse or approve of her actions, I was saddened by the number of people who had plenty of unkind things to say about her.  I thought about that old Everlast song, "What it's like", and that most of these people (myself included) probably have no idea what was going on in her life to make her do that, or what it was like to walk in her shoes.  The unfortunate truth is that many people find themselves in desperate situations where they feel they must resort resort to actions that other people might consider extreme and unacceptable.

People have different limits, just like many of us have different definitions of needs and wants.  A philosophy professor once challenged my class with a dilemma: A man's wife is dying and he cannot afford the medicine that will save her life.  Is it ok for him to steal from the drug store to save her life?  Of course, this question was deliberately framed as though there were no alternatives.  Many of my classmates said "no, stealing is never ok", while still others insisted that it would be more wrong to allow her to die.  I think it's impossible for anyone to know for sure unless they're faced with that terrible situation.

I can't remember exactly what our income was when I was a kid, but I think the three of us lived on around $800 a month in SSDI plus another $100 or so in food stamps.  I am tremendously grateful for Government assistance programs, and am extremely empathetic to those who need them.  Unfortunately, many of our elementary and middle-school classmates seemed to have gotten the idea (possibly from their parents) that all welfare recipients are system-abusing, lazy, manipulative people.  Those kids made life suck just a little more.  My dad desperately wanted to work, but he simply couldn't.  We did also benefit from the generosity of other people and family along the way, who gave food, clothing, and other necessities from time to time.

A Trip to Jamaica Helped Me Realize Just How
Grateful I Was for Everything I'd Ever Had

We weren't that bad off, but things definitely got tight from time to time.  The van broke down.  The electric bill spiked.  We had a cold snap and burned through more than our budget of heating oil.  There were times when we felt desperate to just get by, and so we took some desperate measures.  We did some things back then that none of us were proud of, nor would we ever consider doing today - counterfeiting food stamps, writing bad checks, and shoplifting to name a few.  At the time, they seemed like our only options, and they were just a means for us to get by.  My dad knew better.  He taught us better.  He even took the time to explain to us all of the ways that the things we were doing were wrong.  But we did them anyway...because we were desperate.  I regret doing those things.  I'm not proud of what we did in any way, but I can't take any of it back.  I know there are many people who live on much less than we had, but don't resort to such desperate measures.  I think that what they have that we didn't is faith.

Today, I'd like to believe that if my family found ourselves in a similar, jobless, fixed-income situation, that we would be able to survive without taking such extreme measures.  The difference today is that we have strong faith that God will take care of us no matter what happens.  Things might get hard, and times might get tough, but the worst thing that could happen is that we abandon our faith and resort to desperate measures.  I thank God that we are blessed well-beyond what we deserve, and that I haven't had to put this belief to the test.  Yet.  There have been times when I thought I might lose my job, or that tragedy might strike, but our faith gives me great peace that God will meet our needs, and we'll be just fine.

I know it's easy to say "have faith", "God will provide", but I also know what it's like to think that desperate times call for desperate measures.  Having experienced both faithfulness and lack thereof, I'll take faith any day.