Scheduling class

It was fate, really. I went in with the intention of starting class in Computer Information Technology. I thought I could knock it out first, what with the courses from my previous degree(s) still on my record.

My new advisor was out, so another professor in the Business Dept. helped me out. Or, tried, really. She couldn't work around the system to my satisfaction, so I left, and changed my major to my 'second choice' - Automotive Technology.

Kinda different, right?

Well, that's true. But that's true about just about everything I do. I go to left field quite often, just to stretch myself. This time, though, it was more about being comfortable.

See, I grew up in a shop, garage, or grease pit of one kind or another. I would run to see my dad slaving under a big rig, getting greasy, shooting the breeze with the other men, and trying to figure out how one problem begat the next. I remember thinking by the time I was in my teens, that the smell of grease and diesel fuel really smelled -- friendly. Welcoming? Homey? Let's just say I liked it. And I like hearing Dad describe how the guys thought this one thing was the problem, and how he corrected them with a simpler fix. "School doesn't teach anything these days", he would say.

Dad only finished the 8th grade, but he'd been under a car or truck since after his return from Germany as a Screaming Eagle Paratrooper. He went just about everywhere to make a living - learning his way around this Mack B model and that Freightliner. Let's just say that song - "I've been everywhere, man", rang true with him.

After finally settling down in NC in 1970, he found jobs here and there at one shop or another, supporting the family the best a mechanic can. Oh, there was drinking, and rowdy times, and racing during that time, but we never really starved. Even during the layoffs. Dad and Mom were handy that way - pre-baby boomers that they are.

The first shop I really remember being in was Plemmons and Irving Produce in Winston-Salem, right across from the Dixie Classic Fairgrounds. His coworker Amigo, as we called him, threw me up into a banana scale and weighed me. He swung me around before putting me down, and told me I wasn't as big as a crate of bananas. Funny the things that stick in our memories, huh?

Anyway, there are stories galore that dot my childhood from this shop or that, as invariably, Dad would get comfortable at one place, just to find out the company was going under, or downsizing, or being bought out. The constant was our shop in the back yard that Dad built in the early 90's. We worked on everything in that shop, from lawnmowers to mudbuggies, to my brother's Chevy 350 hot rod.

Then I started working on things of my own, with Dad's supervision. The biggest project was rebuilding my first car, an 81 Buick Riviera, after I blew the head gasket. That probably taught me the most about the insides of an engine. From then on, I could spout big words like "rear differential gear ratio" and I knew common trick questions - like "where's the radiator on a VW Bug".

All that brought me here, to finally decide to take the plunge, and instead of learning via the school of hard knocks, to let an institution of 'higher learning' school me in proper car etiquette, and bring me up-to-date on all these new-fangeled electronics.

I met with Hardin Kennedy, my new advisor, and I was registered before I knew it. Smooth.

So this is my blog about my exploits as a girl mechanic. Learning more, experiencing new things, teaching the boys a thing or two (hopefully), and empowering other women to do it 'their dang selves'. My ultimate goal? Teaching other women how to care for their own car, do emergency repairs, and routine maintenance. I'll do the rest. And I'll call my garage - MechaniChics.