'Thank you, Bertha!: Learning from Failure'

By Andrea Green

Motlow Buzz Contributing Writer

         I had a flat last week. Luckily, I was in a parking lot, the weather was pleasant, and I had the tools needed to change the tire. I was back on the road in under 15 minutes, and as I drove away, I reminisced about the first time I changed a tire. It was the same day I learned to drive.  

         My father woke me at dawn one Saturday afternoon and announced that we were going to the high school parking lot. He said, “I’ll drive us there, and you’ll drive us back.” His announcement was bittersweet. I was finally going to learn to drive, but I had to learn with Bertha.

Bertha was the nickname my father gave the family car. She was a 1985 black Ford Taurus with a cracked windshield and a broken radio. My father bought her from a co-worker for $500. He got what he called “a heck of a deal” because Bertha “needed a little work.” To my father, she was a project that required some tender loving care. To me, she was an embarrassing monstrosity I hated.  

The back bumper was dented in several places. The passenger side doorknob was broken, so the driver had to lean across the seat and open the passenger’s door from the inside. Although the air-conditioner worked fine, the radiator didn’t. That meant that even during the summer we had to keep the heater on so the radiator wouldn’t overheat. I still cringe at the thought of onlookers gawking at us those times Bertha spewed coolant from her radiator like a fountain of neon-green profanities.

My father worked on Bertha continuously, but she still broke down often. My father spent most weekends rummaging around the local junkyard, futilely attempting to locate parts to fix whatever was wrong with Bertha that week. It never mattered though. Bertha was a lost cause because what she needed was new. New doors. News windshield. New radiator. Unfortunately, ‘new’ was something we couldn’t afford.

The morning I learned to drive, I didn’t care that Bertha wasn’t new. I put my acrimony aside and eagerly waited to get behind the wheel. It turns out that learning to drive a 5-speed manual automobile was tricky. Most manual cars today have a shift indicator on the dashboard. Not Bertha. She left me to fend for myself. Bertha was so touchy that if I didn’t release the clutch at just the right moment before I hit the gas, she’d die.

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"Sometimes we don’t realize that it’s often our failures that pave the way toward our successes." 

   -- Andrea Green, Instructor of English on Motlow's Smyrna campus

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 Two hours into my lesson, my bitterness returned. I had moved Bertha about 300 yards, and I hated her more than ever. She and I had finally both broken down; I was in tears and Bertha declined to start. My father is resilient man, so he refused to give up on his car or his daughter. He popped Bertha’s hood, got her running again, and commanded me to dry my eyes. I begged him to let me go home. He said, “You can go home when Bertha gets you there.”

I envied my friends. Most of them were also learning to drive, but they were learning on newer vehicles, cars with radios, air-conditioners, and gears that shifted automatically. Some of my best friends already had their permits and would be driving themselves to school in the fall. Not me, though. I was stuck with Bertha. I fumed as I sat on her hot seats, sweat mingling with the tears running down my cheeks.

“It’s not fair!” I yelled. “Why don’t we have a car that works? This is ridiculous! How is this going to help me learn?”

“It’s not Bertha’s fault,” my father replied. “Quit feeling sorry for yourself. You only fail if you stop trying.” My father’s tone warned me against any further complaining. I dried my eyes and tried again. Again Bertha died. I tried again. Bertha died.

Eventually, I got the feel of the clutch and I knew the exact moment to hit the gas. I drove around the parking lot and then to the end of the street. I drove around the football field and back to the school again. By lunch I had nearly emptied Bertha’s tank. My father offered me a congratulatory pat on the back and told me to drive to the gas station.

I offered Bertha a $5 fill up as a peace offering and asked her forgiveness for my foul treatment and evil thoughts. I felt a sense of accomplishment when I finally eased her into our drive-way. I locked her doors and tossed my father the keys, but to my surprise he tossed them back and said, “You’re not done. You need to change the tire.”

I examined Bertha’s tires and said, “There’s no flat.”

My father said, “There will be one day. Now change it.”

Just like the driving lesson, the tire changing lesson produced sweat, tears, and a lot of angry thoughts. My father watched as I removed and reattached a perfectly good tire. He wanted me to figure it out on my own, so he offered no instructions. First, I couldn’t find where to place the jack. I finally figured that out, but then I forgot to loosen the lug nuts before I raised the car. It took me an hour and a half to change one tire. I was furious with my father for the rest of the week.

A few months later, I was grateful my father had forced me to change that tire because I was out with a friend and she got a flat. I knew exactly what to do. I realized that my father taught me the hard way because he wanted me to get acquainted with failure. He knew that I would probably fail many times in my life, and he wanted me to be able to overcome those failures and learn from them. 

Sometimes we don’t realize that it’s often our failures that pave the way toward our successes. The lessons learned the hard way are the ones that are sometimes the most beneficial. Some students may be retaking courses this spring because they failed them last semester. Rather than wallowing in aggravation at having to retake the course, readjust your attitude. Think of last semester as a lesson learned. Work harder, reach out to your professors, and succeed this semester!

I overheard a student last week tell her friend that she “bombed” her first test in a class, so she was “just going to stop going.” Why!? It’s the failures that keep up going, if we learn from them. I spent years hating Bertha because I saw her as a failure, a piece of junk. I also saw myself as a failure because I couldn’t drive her the first few hundred (yes, hundred!) times I tried. When I encountered that deflated tire last week, however, I didn’t think about how many times I failed. Instead, I changed my tire and when I was done, I yelled, “Thank you, Bertha!”