I emerged from the wonderful world that is a gearhead’s garage. Compared to the beauty I had just seen, my car looked like it was ready for the junk yard. I stole a glance down the side of the body. The deep scratch from the accident and the sizable dent from my mom’s car made me cringe. I peered under the hood to find that my dad already had my sixteen-dollar chrome air cleaner off and was adjusting the old Quadrajet. I looked with envy at the shiny Edelbrook carburetor that sat on a shelf to my left. I had wanted to replace my carburetor for a while, but I couldn’t justify the cost. My car was running well enough. It idled roughly, and like a spoiled child, refused to move if it thought it was too cold outside of the garage. My car came alive. He started whistling to himself as he checked the brake fluid. We talked about my car, his car, his friend’s car, cruise-ins, and street race nights. As the sun started to cast shadows, I filled the oil pan with fresh Penz oil and the tune-up was finished. I swung open one of the big blue doors, sat down on a square of brown carpet that covered the hole in the seat, and turned the key. The small engine started without complaint. Even with brand new oil, I was annoyed when I heard the old oil lifter knock still ticking under the hood. This is quite common in Buick engines of the sixties and seventies; Buick couldn’t seem to make a sufficient oiling system. I started thinking about ways to improve the oiling …show more content…
Yanked back to reality, it took a moment for me to comprehend the question. I had been asked it many times before, and I never had a good answer. At that moment, though, I felt as though I had a fairly solid grasp on it. “Right now, it’s looking like Automotive Engineering.”
He nodded, seemingly impressed. I was certainly more impressed than he was. I’d never really come to a conclusion on a college major, but after a few hours under the hood, I felt like I knew what I wanted to do. As I drove my delightfully smooth-running ’72 Buick Skylark home to my mama, I began to envision my future as an Automotive