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.
________________________________________________
"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
________________________________________________
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!”
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