The Oil Change

I take my car to a mechanic for oil changes.  Now, that sounds a lot fancier than it is.  When I lived in Cincinnati, I would take it to someplace like Jiffy-Lube.  Most of what they do is oil changes with the occasional radiator flush and tire rotation; you are in and out in about 20 minutes if they aren't busy.  Here there is one fast lube place, a Wal-Mart and dozens of little mechanic’s garages.

If you’ve never been to a small town mechanic-it’s hard to describe.  I show up, tell them who my kin is (that means relatives in case you didn’t know) and they treat me like they’ve known me all my life… Ask after my family and neighbors; ask what I do and the like- all the while, letting me watch and ask questions about what they’re doing while they’re working under the car.  There are always 3-6 men in the garage whether they work there or not and at least one will be really old and missing teeth.  They always seem really interested that I would bring my car to a mechanic without male accompaniment.

A few months ago, I was having some trouble with my car; it was loud and didn’t have as much power as it should.  I took it to this place Mom told me about, apparently my brother-in-law worked there for a little while.  Mike was able to tell me what was wrong just by lying down in front of the car and wiggling a few things underneath.  I went to get cash-he doesn’t take plastic and Mom is one of the few people he’ll take a check from.  An hour after getting back to his garage, I was on the road with a new flex tube and a much quieter car.  And when I took the car back because the weld had failed and my car sounded like crap again, he said they had messed up and then fixed it without any hassle or charge.

So I walk in this morning and Mike asks how I’m doing-“fine and you?”  Then I ask after the possibility of an oil change-he says “pretty good” Mike asks if I want to leave the car or come back in a couple of hours.  I said “I’ll bring it back” and that’s the end of the conversation… he goes back to standing under the truck looking at the underside while the owner tells him what’s wrong with it. 

Oil changes, used tires and other small things are what keep small local garages in business.  I’d rather have my oil changed at Mike’s any day-his prices are fair, he’s fast and if anything is ever really wrong with my car, I know the name of a good mechanic.  Plus it keeps life far more interesting than spending 20 minutes sitting on a molded plastic chair.

In a couple minutes it will have been a couple hours and time to take the car back. 

Other-ness and Blue People

I led a very suburban life in my childhood.

We lived a block from my school, a little Catholic school, and yes there were uniforms. We, myself and the people I spent most of my time with – my brothers, our friends, sometimes my little sister- rode bikes around the neighborhood, hung out at each others houses, had snowball or milkweed fights, walked to the store to buy candy and tried to have as much fun as possible and make it home before the streetlights went on. We were able to go and do without too much hassle. Most of the places we wanted were within walking distance or we knew how to use Louisville’s bus system.

Other cities I had visited had the same feel about them. We had been to Dayton, OH and Chicago, IL every couple of years to visit family. I had been other places too like to COSI with the Girl Scouts, Santa Claus Land (yes, it was still Santa Claus Land at the time) and the Wisconsin Dells.

It was sometime around my 13^th birthday when we learned we would be moving to Hazard, KY (or thereabouts.) When my Dad brought us for our first visit he tried to explain that living here wouldn’t be like living in Louisville. He gave us lots of advice like “wait till the people approach you” and “if you rush off they will think you’re rude” and his favorite, “never leave Church early, someone will follow to make sure you are okay.” Apparently, the first time Dad went to our Church here, he left right after Communion (which was a commonly accepted practice in Louisville) and three doctors followed to make sure he wasn’t sick.

Dad also gave us a newspaper article he thought might interest us. It was about the “Blue People of Troublesome Creek” about a family with a blood disorder that caused them to turn blue when they got cold. I was 13, and imagined hundreds of people the color of Smurfs all over Eastern KY. In all the time I have lived here, I have never seen a blue person… because they don’t exist. Not the way I was thinking; it isn’t like a mood ring. And it is rare. Always was, but now it is much rarer than it was in the 60s when it was discovered in this area. Because the thing that was keeping the blood disorder alive was proximity.

Here in the early 1900s it wasn’t as easy to get to… well, anywhere. Your neighbors were your family and sometimes boys ended up married to the girl next door aka cousin Bess. I found and reread that article recently and it was interesting and technical. I noticed one of the family names listed in the article and asked a friend if her family was one of the descendant lines that had this blood disorder. She was kind of suspicious about my interest. I realized later she was thinking of the incest stuff and I was thinking how cool it would be to see someone turn blue.

There are a couple of misconceptions I want to address here:

• I don’t care that your Great Grandpa married his first cousin, that was a different time. None of the people I know here now have done it.
• The people here are basically just like the people everywhere else. Some are vegetarians, some play video games and some are morons.
• Undereducated is not the same as ignorant. I know a couple of really smart people who finished high school and that is it.
• Some of the smartest people I know came from here: doctors, lawyers, professors, you name it… environmental engineer, computer programmer and one genius that can’t really be pinned to one thing-so he's a substitute teacher. I’m just the librarian.

I think what Dad was trying to explain to us about life here is the other-ness. Now that I am sitting here trying to, I know there is no description that can capture it, but I’ll try. I can run into someone I haven’t seen since high school, (who wasn't really my friend at the time) in Wal-mart or the library and they will ask me how I’ve been then ask about all of my family by name and I know that they really want to know. For all their lives, people here live next to family, so if you live next to them, you may not be blood kin, but you are family. Any person that is my family’s kin is my family same goes with friends.

My sister, Joan and I look a lot alike: she’s a little taller, I have darker hair. I always though she was prettier. I wear a lot of black, make stuff and watch Science Fiction and Foreign stuff. She’s really busy with her kids and NA. You get the picture, we’re different. Mom and I were walking into Wal-Mart a couple of weeks ago, when I see this woman waving at me. I smile and wave back at her because by this point I figured she was just saying “hi” to my sister. She says, “Oh I though you were Joanie!” We ended up talking to her for about 20 minutes. That is just the kind of place this is. Other-ness and blue people.

Interested in reading about the Blue People of Troublesome Creek? Click the blue words.