Story 10: Dad Saves the Day

         Several years ago when I was but a child, we were once again returning home from the Catskills to Long Island in the Rambler, when the car started to overheat. My father pulled over to the side of the road, and looked under the hood. Billows of white smoke were coming from underneath. I saw him talking to himself as he often did, and as I often still do today.

“We have a problem.” He muttered similar to what the astronauts purportedly told NASA mission control in Houston.  Both were important issues, but the bottom line is how do we get home?

“Kids,” My father stated “I need you to look in the car for some water.”

So off we excitedly went looking under every cushion, nook, cranny, pennies went flying, it was like a scavenger hunt, but unfortunately we couldn’t find any water. Blame it on all the empty bags of potato chips.

“Sorry.” we said collectively.

It was then that my father had an epiphany.

“I have an idea.” He declared proudly. Now, when my father had an idea it was usually a good one. He was the kind of man who when he saw a problem, he would develop a creative solution, and work tirelessly to fix it. For example, He encouraged our town to fix a hole in a fence by the train to prevent people from wandering onto the tracks, and also pushed for lights to be placed in a local park’s parking lot so people, especially seniors, could see where they are going at night after  summer concerts.  It is for these reasons that I feel I have developed his creative problem solving trait, and a strong desire to help others too.

“Aha!” my father yelled out as he reached into the trunk of the car.

“You found some water?” my mother asked expectantly.

“No, but I think this will work just the same.” He replied, and then triumphantly held up a full container of pure Mott’s apple juice.  He held it up with such pride you would think it was a new baby fresh from the delivery room, instead of  a plastic gallon jug from Waldbaums.

“I think this should work.” He beamed.

And that’s what he did. After letting the engine cool a bit, he poured the juice into the radiator, and surprisingly it worked like a charm. We made it back to Long Island, all of us smelling like apples the whole ride home.

Life Lesson Ten: What I learned from my father is that when dealing with problems we need to be persistent, think outside the box, and remember that some boxes, like juice boxes, are sometimes all that we need to get us where we need to go in life.