Nyla and I Become Car Mechanics... Sort Of

Discussion in 'People I Have Known' started by Yvonne Smith, Feb 14, 2015.

  1. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    I first met Nyla back when both of our children were young, and we went to the same small north Idaho church together. A deep friendship developed between us that has lasted over 30 years, even though I don't get to visit with Nyla much anymore.
    One of the memories that we both cherish is the trip we took together from northern Idaho to California so Nyla could see her mother, who was old and in poor health.
    We determined that we could make the trip together as cheaply in my old Datsun pickup as Nyla could by flying down and back, and we would enjoy the time spent together.

    I had just replaced the head-gaskets on the 71 Datsun pickup we were driving, and the garage was supposed to have checked everything out before I got it back.
    They didn't.
    We had made it into our second day, and were winding through the mountains of central Oregon when the radiator hose broke and started spurting antifreeze everywhere.
    Fortunately, we had brought along extra gallon jugs of water, so we let it cool down and refilled the radiator.

    Now.... how to patch that hose ??
    Imagine------ two little old ladies, out on a back highway, 20 miles to the next town.
    Then, we dug through everything that was in the back of the Datsun pickup, looking for something -----anything ----- that would work temporarily, so we could limp into a mechanic shop.

    Finally, we found an old shower curtain (to this day I have NO idea why that thing was in the back of my pickup ? ?), and we took scissors out of my knitting bag, and cut a nice piece of shower curtain off and wrapped it tightly around the radiator hose.
    Next, I took some of my knitting yarn, and we wrapped that around and around the shower curtain and put some good "granny knots" in it.
    Away we went, praying we made it to the next town.

    Yes, it worked, we made it to the next town, and you should have been there to see the look on that mechanic's face when he opened the hood and looked at our repair job.

    I know that he must have chuckled about our shower curtain "fix-it" for the rest of the afternoon...
     
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