We were dirt
poor back in 1979. I was a full-time law
school student. Susan was a teacher, but
the schools weren’t hiring. She ended up
working as a secretary at the University of Pittsburgh for a poverty-level wage
and typed papers for graduate students to supplement our meager income. We lived in a roach-infested apartment in Mt.
Oliver and drank powdered milk to stretch our money. Nevertheless, we were optimistic about the
future, and decided to drive to North Carolina for a vacation. My job was to change the oil in our car, so
we could leave early the next morning for our long drive from Pittsburgh to the
Outer Banks.
We owned a
stripped down 1976 Plymouth Duster with a three-speed stick shift on the
column. It had Chrysler’s terrifically
reliable slant 6 engine. Based on prior
experience with that engine in my father’s 1962 Plymouth, I knew that changing
the oil could be a challenge. The oil
filter was the key. It was hard to get
to on a slant 6 and seemed to work itself tighter as you drove the car. Nevertheless, I was committed to doing the
job myself. I had changed oil many times
before and figured we could use the money I saved to do something special on
our vacation. So I bought a new oil
filter and six quarts of oil. Armed with
my toolbox and oil filter wrench, I was ready to go.
I crawled under
the car, loosened the oil pan nut and drained the oil into an old dishpan. So far,
so good, I said to myself. Then I
got the oil filter wrench and crawled back under the car to remove the oil
filter. It wouldn’t budge. I exerted some pressure. Dammit!
The old filter had started to
crumple. I better stop before I ruin this filter, I thought. If I
ruin it and still can’t get it off, I won’t be able to drive the car anywhere.
So I decided to put the old oil back in
the engine, and I drove the car to a local gas station to get help.
The mechanic put
the car on a rack and lifted it into the air.
He was able to quickly and easily loosen the oil filter.
“Do you want me
to do an oil change for you?” he asked.
“No,” I replied. “Just tighten it lightly so I can get it home.
I’ll change the oil myself.” He charged me a nominal fee, and I drove back
to our apartment.
Our apartment
was on the second floor of a three-story building that was built into a
hillside. The parking lot was in the
rear of the building. It was built on a cliff that rose about fifteen feet above
our 2nd floor level apartment to nearly the height of the building’s
third floor. Stairs led from both sides of the parking lot down
to the second floor apartments. A
central staircase led from the parking lot to the third floor balcony that
extended across the back of the building.
Pillars supported the balcony on its right and left corners and on
either side of the central staircase. The
parking lot was slanted toward the gulf between the cliff and the
building.
I drove down the
alley behind our apartment building and backed into the parking lot. I wanted
the car to face uphill to make it easier to crawl under the engine
compartment. I immediately got to work
and re-drained the old oil. I easily removed
the old oil filter thanks to the help from the service station. I installed the new filter and put in the new
oil. Everything went smoothly. I now just had to start the motor and check
for leaks.
I started the
engine, and everything seemed fine. I
depressed the clutch and shifted the car into neutral. I made sure the hand brake was well set and
got out of the car. I crawled underneath
the front of the car and looked for leaks.
I didn’t see any. I had
successfully completed the oil change!
Suddenly, I
heard a click and the car started to move.
I jumped out from underneath it and saw it starting to roll toward the
edge of the cliff. The hood was open so
I grabbed the front of the car. But
there was no way I could hold back a two-ton automobile as it started to roll
over the edge. “Oh, my God! Noooo!” I screamed.
Just as the car
was rolling over the cliff, the front wheels hit a bump and turned slightly
causing the rear fender to collide with one of the pillars near the third floor
steps. This collision stopped the car’s
descent but left my car suspended in mid-air with one front tire planted on the
cliff and the rear fender wedged against the pillar. It looked like it could go crashing down into
the pit at any moment. “My God, My God!”
I screamed, and started to hyperventilate.
The third floor neighbors came out to see what was going on.
I ran into my
apartment. I was unsure of what to do
next. I called AAA and told them I had
an emergency and needed a tow truck as quickly as possible. I called Susan at work and told her I had
destroyed our vacation by wrecking the car.
I started thinking of all the idiotic mistakes I had made. Why
hadn’t I just allowed the garage to change the oil? How
could I be so stupid not to put blocks behind the tires before I got out of the
car to check for oil leaks?
A tow truck
arrived sooner than I expected.
“I heard the
call on the radio and came right away,” the driver said eyeing up my car. “I think I can get you out of there.”
“Are you with
AAA?” I asked.
“No, so this
will cost you,” he replied. “Or you
could just wait for the AAA tow truck if you want.”
I looked at my
car which hung, precariously balanced over the abyss. Whatever it cost for the tow truck couldn’t
compare to the cost of replacing the car.
I knew I had no choice. “Go ahead,”
I told him. “And please hurry.”
I could hardly
bear to watch as he connected cables to the car’s front end. While he was working, the AAA tow truck
arrived. “I’m sorry, but I’ve already
hired this guy to do the job,” I told him.
“That’s okay,”
he said. “I think I’ll just stick
around to watch this.”
The other tow truck
operator checked the cables and engaged the mechanism on his truck. The cables tightened and the car started to
move. At first I thought it would still
fall, but the tow truck operator must have known what he was doing. The wood from the supporting pillar groaned
as the car was slowly lifted from its resting place. Metal ground against concrete as the car was
dragged slowly across the edge of the cliff.
Finally, the rear wheels were resting on solid ground, and then the car
was pulled back into the parking lot.
The tow truck
operator unhooked the cables from my car, and I happily paid his fee. I looked the car over. There was a dent in the rear fender where it
had been wedged against the pillar. Outside
of that, I could not detect any damage.
I started it up and everything worked fine. I parked the car, and called Susan.
“You won’t
believe this, but the car is okay,” I told her.
“I mean, it has a dent, but everything else works, and we can still
leave for our vacation tomorrow.”
“You’re telling
me you were under it when it started to move?” she said. “You’re lucky to be alive!”
“I know. When I think of how much of a tragedy this
could have been, I know that God must have really been watching over me.”
We left early
the next morning for the Outer Banks.
The car ran fine. At one point,
we noticed a rattle, but that was easily fixed at a service station along the
way.
We held onto
that car for a couple more years until I was out of law school and Susan got a
job as a teacher. Then we bought a brand
new car and placed an ad in the newspaper to sell the Duster. A Brazilian student offered to buy it over
the phone, sight unseen, and the Duster was gone from our lives. However, the experience of that oil change
has never left me. I’ve taken my cars to
service stations ever since!
