The day had finally arrived.
I was a teen.
It was spring time. The ice was gone but the water was icy.
The leaves may have been present. There may have been more colour, more light, but I remember everything was grey that day - though I will admit, things were pretty gray as well.
The lake, the cliff, the trunks of the trees, the rocks, the beach, the boat and the sky - all were grey.
Only things escaped the totality of that gray day. The first was the smile of a teenage boy, beaming as he bounced towards a rite of passage. The second?
The lil’ green 9.9
As a young boy one early mark of manhood was the ability to start an engine. These days people seem to take this for granted. With battery powered everything from lawnmowers to chainsaws, the flywheel is becoming a threatened species in the developed word.
These days you don’t even need to take your keys out of your pocket and the car unlocks itself. This does not go well when you are a selectively suspicious person.
I’m generally a trusting person.
Except…
How am I able to do the whole dad ‘check the handle to see if it’s locked’ routine?
I check the handle and the thing opens itself up. I lock it again, then go back to check the handle.
The damn car unlocks itself.
It’s making me nuts.
I never get the satisfaction of feeling locked out of my car.
And there is nothing more satisfying than being locked out of your car.
It’s satisfying because what ever you were supposed to do next? That’s not happening.
Right now, you’re doing this.
You know the keys are somewhere, not far, inches away.
If your car is old and shitty enough, you can likely get in with a coat hanger and a youtube video.
When you’re locked out of your car all you can do is surrender to that reality and make a new choice.
Everything becomes concrete, immediate, wonderful and ultimately satisfying.
But with a car with theses fancy sensor electric locks with radar and ai there is neither the satisfaction of imagining being locked out, nor the ability to actually tell if your car is locked or not.
I’ve attempted to sneak up on it late at night as it sits plugged into the house. I take a couple of steps, then stand really still. I hold up my phone with the flash light on and pretend I’m a streetlight. One time, I couldn’t stay still. I had to improvise. I moved my phone in a circular motion while imitating the sound of a foghorn.
And you know what that did?
The damn car started right up.
Yup. My Prius gets turned on by a skinny arsed fifty year old moron pretending to be a lighthouse.
That’s a screwed up car.
Which is why that old 9.9 on that grey dey was so amazing.
Do you want to go test it?
Do I? Oh yes. More than anything.
The lessons began.
Gas. Air. Spark.
That how it worked.
Too much gas and you’d flood it.
I had to keep a lot of stuff straight in my teen brain that gray aay.
Getting a motor started was a skill. Getting a pull cord boat motor started was a test. I remember being prepared. I also remember being very excited. I think the excited part was loud. The prepared part got caught up in the thrill of it all and forgot stuff.
Stuff about gas and where to set it and chokes and how to use it and four squeezes or the ball or was that five and how many has that been oh shit adhd flooded the engine.
I used to have such fantasies about how these defining moments would go: A stroke and a half on the choke and two tugs on the rope and I’d have it up on plane within seconds. I’d be there in the boat with my hair shirt off, hair blowing in the wind, smoking a menthol - you know the drill. It would be sunny. The beach would be filled with girls who wanted me to kiss them.
There would be no teen greater than I!
I’d be Yertle the turtle with a mullet.
Oh marvelous me!
Instead.
On this gray day, I had launched backwards, into the fog, attempting not to hit the other boats docked at the marinas as I paddled into deep water.
Once there, I attempted to start the motor.
The motor was flooded.
I did it.
All I could do was wait and attempt to control the drifting as I did.
As I waited and drifted, the wind came up.
The wind came up and began to blow me from the little sheltered cover and out into the lake.
I drifted past the beach past the point and out through the narrows. My heart raced as I flapped from task to task - one moment attempting to paddle, then tugging on the rope the next.
The waves were a lot bigger by now. I had drifted through the narrows and out into the expanse between the northwest cove and the opening to the big lake.
If I slipped through there, I’d be screwed.
If I flipped where I was it would have been worse. Though not ready to flip, conditions were deteriorating. I had to do something.
So I waited.
As I waited a bit longer, I focused on the oars. Pulling valiantly for the opposite shoreline, I knew I had to get into the shelter of that hill one way or another.
I likely had only drifted about half a mile, but it felt like I’d gone to Jupiter. Gulping down my panic, I got up to give the lil green 9.9 one more go.
One pull. Nothing.
Two pulls. A puff of smoke.
SHIT! TURN OFF THE CHOKE!
Three pulls. A chugg a thump and a sputter.
Open the throttle a little
With pull number four the lil green 9.9 roared to life. I couldn’t believe it. The danm thing worked! I got it going! I made it work!
As a 14 year old boy, this was one of the greatest days of my life.
I put it in gear, opend up the throttle and she went right up onto plane, just perfect. The lake on the lee side of the hill was calm and flat.
I couldn’t let that stay as it was. Immediately I took the lil green 9.9 over. I made tight fast circles churning the lake up into more frothing chop. Pleased with the chaos I induced, I moved on to smash the hull against the two foot chop coming down the lake.
The ride back to the beach and the pump house did not disappoint me. Sure, it wasn’t the coming of age of my dreams. Given the weather, I should have at least been given a menthol. Smoking was pretty normal with the fourteen year old set.
That was the last time I used the 9.9.
I think that was the last time it was ever used.
My granddad had fixed it up. I tested it. He sold it not long after that.
And that was the end of the lil green engine.
And sure, that’s not much of an ending.
Nor is it much of a story.
In a lot of ways it was a whole lot of build up for a whole lot of nothing.
I think we humans do that a lot.
We turn mountains into mole hills and molehills into mountains all while claiming to do the opposite.
Was it worth it?
My ride with the little green motor certainly was.
I still remember that gray day and the way the wind pierced my scalp as we came onto plane and flew down the lake bouncing and splashing all the while.