Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 18, 1993 TAG: 9307150030
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
After spending the better part of four days removing, tearing down, rebuilding and re-installing the 318 cubic-inch V-8, the crew was a bit too superstitious to exhibit much glee.
We couldn't help but smile, though, for a few seconds.
As it turned out, we still had a few snags to overcome. The thermostat and the temperature-sensing device, two of the few things we hadn't replaced, inexplicably refused to work and the engine overheated as we adjusted the timing.
Fortunately, the experienced mechanics - my brother-in-law, Michael, and his nephew, Pete - sensed the problem and shut down the engine before any damage was done. We got the new parts and she warmed up just right, sparking a glow in our bellies like you get from a shot of clear corn liquor.
In the mountains of North Carolina, with the van rolled up under a shade tree, we engaged in an American ritual. Cussing and tinkering - we made dead iron and steel and aluminum become a breathing, almost living, thing.
It was a vacation some of my friends and co-workers didn't really understand. Oh, they understand how cheap I am - wanting to get every possible mile out of my motor-vehicle investment. Some had no idea I knew enough about cars to even hand the real mechanics a rachet or screwdriver.
Most just don't understand the romance of lying in a mud stirred up out of sand and spilled motor oil and leaked transmission fluid, greasy dirt falling in your eyes as you unbolt a stubborn motor mount.
Though we cuss and kick and swear we'll never do it again, the lure of the automobile is too much for some of us - especially, I think, those of us who grew up in the backwaters.
The childhood dreams of independence and speed and mastery of a powerful beast are hard to repress.
These men who healed my ailing machine are mechanics, surgeons, physicists, theologians. They are good ol' boys who know you can understand how some things work, but that you just have to have faith that other things will. They know success is a matter of a thousandth of an inch and a foot-pound of torque, as well as a matter of a dribble of spit and a smidgen of prayer.
What they don't think about is how this is truly a spiritual experience for somebody like me whose usual work with his hands only involves pushing pencils and typewriter keys.
My work as a reporter is a work of creation, and wonderfully satisfying most days. But it is ephemeral, immeasurable, incorporeal.
To mold from nature's materials something tangible and solid, to imbue that with a bit of your own spirit, is to imitate the Creation in a small way. To understand that is to gain a little in the understanding of the Creator, I think.
Creating can be dirty, frustrating, hit-and-miss work. When the result is just right, though, when the creation exhibits perfection - even if only briefly, the effort seems worth it.
We have to wonder sometimes whether even the Creator has been able to experience that feeling with the human creation.
But just listen to that engine hum.
Cody Lowe reports on issues of religion and ethics for this newspaper.
by CNB