"Man on Fire"

One day many many years ago, I received a call from Tom. He inquired as to what plans I might have later on that evening. Other than an indoor soccer game at 2200, I didn’t have anything else planned. He then informed me that several of his coworkers were going out to eat and most likely get drunk, and asked if I would like to join them since he knew that none of that would offend me. After agreeing to come along, he informed me that they were going to a sushi place called “big tuna”. Now anyone who knows me, is aware that I am not a fan of seafood, whether its cooked or not, but being the fan of adventure that I am, I am willing to try just about anything at least once I decided I would still go. When we got there, his coworkers had been there for a little while, and several of them had a healthy start on their liquid spirits. After some brief introductions, we grabbed some seats next to them at the counter and started looking through the menu. As I was scanning the menu for anything that might appear edible, tom asked me what kind of sushi I liked. It was at this time I informed him that I had never had it before, and that I didn’t like seafood. At this time he gave me a look as if to say “why in the world did you come then?”. He then took the menu from me, and told me that we should get the all you could eat special. For about 24$ we could eat pretty much anything on the menu for as long as our stomachs could go. Not being one to back away, I agreed. For the most part, we started at the top of the menu and just worked our way down, sampling everything they had, like eel, crab, and many many others. After about an hour we had worked our way through most the list, when we got to uni. For those of you not familiar with sushi, uni is another word for sea urchin. It has the texture of mashed up rotten bananas. I don’t remember the taste, because the texture was enough to prevent me from swallowing it, sending my body into convulsions in an attempt to expel the substance from my body. After several attempts to swallow it, I ended up spitting it out in my napkin, so as to avoid having anything else I had eaten try to make an unwanted escape from my stomach. After recovering from the unexpected ambush by the uni, we proceeded through the menu. By this time, everyone at the bar was having what appeared to be a great time. Every couple minutes there were repeated shouts of “saki bomb!”, at which all those drinking would take a shot of saki, including the chefs. At some point during all of this, either tom put in a request for something different, or one of the chefs who had been helping us work our way through the menu asked tom and I if we would be willing to try something. The chef asked tom what he wanted, to which tom replied “surprise me”. The chef then got a large grin on his face, and with a loud scratchy voice and a thick Japanese accent he yelled “good choice!!!”. The chef then asked us if we like spicy, to which we responded in the affirmative. Then smiling the chef asked us how spicy on a scale of 1-10, to which tom again said “surprise me”. With a gleam in his eye, the chef again yelled out “good choice!!!”. After several minutes, the chef appeared with a small dish, which he handed to tom. Tom put a small amount of the mystery food in his mouth, and instantly sweat appeared on his forehead, and tears formed in his eyes! Of course my first thought is that tom is a pansy and there is no way this can be that spicy. So I confidently take a scoop, making sure that I take more than tom did. Instantly my mouth feels like its on fire! I swallow the food in hopes that it will provide my mouth with relief. To my dismay, my mouth continues to burn, and the sensation starts to spread down my throat and into my stomach following the food as it makes its way through my system. It felt like my insides were on fire! Immediately we flagged down a waitress to restock now empty water glasses. We drank glass after glass of cold water, the intense fiery effect never losing any of its intensity. After several minutes of this, we decided our next best option was to order something with rice in it, which would hopefully quench the fire. It takes a good fifteen minutes of suffering before we are able to gain some sort of control over ourselves. At this point, we both are curious as to what we just ate. We ask the nearest chef to tell us what this fiery dish is. He just looks at us with a blank face as he says he doesn’t know what it is, the only way to find out is to ask the guy who made it. After waiting for a while, we see the chef who prepared our special dish. He asks us if we liked it, to which we replied that it was hot. He then shouts out “good choice!!” again. At this time we ask him what was in in, and in the same excited voice he yells out “FISH!!!!  and SPICE!!!”, followed almost immediately with another “good choice!!” The whole afternoon was a great time. After we had been there for a couple hours, we all said good bye to each other and headed off on our separate ways.

"Mercy Mercy me"

So, I find out that summer leave is coming up and that I will have 2 weeks of free time away from Ft. Lewis. For leave I decide to head back home to Palmdale, and that I should drive the truck (1960 Chevy pickup) home and drop it off, and bring Daisy (197five cj five) back up to WA.

The day for we sign out for leave arrives. After final formation, we all sign out. I then change out of uniform as quickly as possible and enlist the help of some friends (it takes several people to push a kayak out the window of a room on the 3^rd floor and lower it somewhat safely to the ground) to start loading the kayak and several tough boxes into the back of the truck. Once everything is loaded I do a few last minute checks and then hit the road on my way. Normally the first leg of the journey goes pretty smoothly and is the easiest since its daylight and im still wide awake (not that I ever really get tired while driving). I should have realized this trip would be different when I found myself in traffic before I even got off post, but I just chalked it up to typical Friday traffic. Six hours later and I had only made it about 130 miles!!! I should have already been almost half way home by now, but instead I had not even made it out of Washington yet. At this time I decide it is less effective to try and fight the stop and go traffic, and that it would be better to pull off and get something to eat in the hopes that once I was done eating the traffic would have dissipated. As I pull into the Wendy’s parking lot, I notice that several other cars seem to have the same plan. In talking to the other folks getting food, I am informed that there were five car accidents all within about a 30 mile stretch of the highway, and that is why traffic has been backed up for so long.

After taking plenty of time enjoying my frosty and fries, I decide things should be cleared up by now and that I should get back on the road. I’m on the road for about a half hour before I start to notice a fair amount of blue smoke pouring out from the back of the truck as I drive down the road. My first thought is that this is not good, since blue smoke is a good indication of burning oil. I glanced down at my trusty oil pressure gauge (the only gauge in the truck that works) and see that I still have plenty of pressure, so I figure things cant be that bad. I start to go over in my head all the reasons that I could be burning oil (bad piston rings, blown gaskets, cracked block, and so on). During this process I decide to call my dad and have him use the magic of the internet to double check my suspicions. After a little research, I figure it is most likely that the piston rings are ruined, and the oil is burning because its leaking through into the combustion chamber. So, one of my favorite shows is called roadkill. It is about 2 guys who drive junk cars long distances for different reasons and have to stop and fix horrible problems on the vehicles every episode. Since I watched an episode where they successfully drove an el camino from LA to Reno with bad piston rings, I figure I should be able to make it the rest of the way as well.

After driving for a couple more hours, it is now dark and the oil pressure gauge is starting to drop a lot quicker than I would like. I decide to pull off on the next exit and see if I cant figure out exactly what is going on. The next exit turns out to be one of those ranch exits, that has no services, no lights. Its sole purpose is to provide some rancher access to his land. As I pull off the road into a dirt lot, I grab my headlamp and hop out to see if I can see why im losing oil pressure. By the time I get out and walk around to the other side of the truck where the engine will be most visible from underneath, the truck has had enough time to drop a small lake of oil on the ground and continue emptying what is left from the oil pan into the dirt which the light from my headlamp gladly reflects off of. I decide that time is short, so I hurry up and dump a gallon of oil in the engine (doesn’t everyone carry an extra gallon of oil everywhere they go?) and head off in search of a truck stop before I run out of oil and get stranded. About 10 miles down the road I come across a “Loves” truck stop and decide to pull in. I find a parking spot, and immediately start making a new lake of oil under the truck. I do my best to try and see where the oil is coming from, but am unsuccessful. I then head into the store in search of more oil, and a mirror on a stick. Once inside I find the oil rather quickly, but spend the next twenty minutes looking for the mirror. I figure since this is a truck stop they are bound to have one, and I am just not seeing it. After repeated failure I finally resort to asking the cashier where it is, and she just gives me a confused look since she has no idea what I’m talking about. I quickly describe to her what it looks like, to which she replies “we don’t carry anything like that here”. I buy about 2 gallons of oil, and head back out to my new man made lake. I do a little more peering and straining in an attempt to find where the oil is leaking from, and come to the conclusion that the rear main seal is probably broken and that it would be best to try and find an auto parts store. I top off the oil and quickly get back on the highway and head on down the road. After about a little over an hour (about 3 am) of driving, I notice the oil pressure start to drop again. Luckily I am coming up on a rest stop. I pull off, and decide that instead of topping off the oil, that it would be better to stop until daylight and then continue on when it would be easier to find. Once I pull into a parking spot, I get out and put my oil drain pan under the leak so that I can capture as much of the oil leaking out as I can. I figure since I have a limited amount with me, I will need to reuse any that I can manage to prevent from becoming a dark lake under the truck. I then get back in the truck and attempt to get some sleep. I spent the rest of the night waking up about every half hour convinced I had heard someone trying to take stuff out of the bed of the truck. Some time a little before sun up I decided attempting to sleep was a lost cause. I got out and grabbed the extra bottles of oil I had and pulled the drain plan out from under the truck. I quickly dumped the contents of the pan along with 3 quarts of oil into the engine, and then was on my way.

At about the same time that the sun was starting to rise, I found a small town ( I don’t remember the name of it) that looked promising. Upon exiting the freeway, I immediately happen across a small chevron station. Once I am inside I locate the oil and start grabbing every bottle they have. The cashier gives me a funny look and informs me that the oil is expensive. I then fill her in on my situation, and that I need the oil no matter what the cost is to make it farther. She then informs me that there is a Walmart, and an O'Reilly's auto parts store in town, and gives me directions on how to get there so that I can get cheaper oil. Gotta love small towns! After driving around for about fifteen minutes, I was able to find both of them right next to each other. Since it was still rather early, I had to sit around for about an hour for the auto parts store to open. I got out and put my drain pan under the truck, and then used this time to call my brother Jake and see what he was up to for the day. Once the store opened, I went in and made my way straight to the section with the mirror on a sticks and bought one. Since it was now light outside, I decided this would be a good opportunity to further diagnose the issue. I took a good look underneath using my newly acquired tool. Because the starter was blocking my view, I was still not able to see what was causing the problem for certain. It still looked like it was leaking from the rear main seal. So I went back in the store and bought several five quart jugs of cheap oil. Once I had filled the motor back up I was quickly on my way again. Since I was not completely sure what the problem was, I opted to keep driving and just stop every fifty miles or so and add more oil. This plan worked alright, all the way till I got to the foot of the grapevine.

I had decided it would be a good idea to stop one last time to get more oil before heading up the pass. I tried paying Credit, and when that didn’t work, tried ATM. That failed also! (turns out when you drive a thousand miles stopping every fifty miles to get stuff, the bank thinks its suspicions activity and puts a hold on your card) Luckily I had enough cash for 2 quarts of oil. After topping it off, I preceded up the pass and was able to make it the rest of the way without incident. Once I arrived home and had access to the necessary tools, upon removing the starter I discovered that the cause of all my troubles was an 8 inch crack along the side of my oil pan. I went to the parts store in an attempt to buy another one, which turned into its own mini adventure. In the end I wound up just taking the pan off and welding up the crack on my own. A trip that normally takes between 16 and 20 hours ended up taking 2 days.