Everything Is Connected

Every fall for the past 12 years, Suzanne and I go into the bush for about a month to cut wood. We do it for a lot of reasons; we need the wood to heat the house and burn in the foundry to make Sharks. That one month of exercise is the only thing that has kept me alive over the years, next to fishing cutting wood is my most favorite thing to do in the world. The spectacular fall scenery, the escape from reality, we see it as our vacation every year, I wouldn't trade it for a month on the beach.

My neighbour Ernie gave me his old Husqueverna chainsaw after he dropped a tree on it, and he also gave me his old farm truck; an 1983 Ford pick up with a straight six block. I welded up some chains (mud grips) and have hauled over 300 cords of wood from deep in the bush over the years. I hooked up a home made trailer with a five ton axle on it and would load that rig to the "nines" a ton and a half on the truck, three tons on the trailer. That's a good day's work.

We used the old Ford as a skidder; I drop a big tree deep in the woods and hook it up to a one hundred foot rope. I give Suzanne a hand signal, she rev's up the Ford and takes a good run at it; the rope stretches out about thirty feet and that log sling shots right out of the forest. It is a helluva sight, we were careful, no one ever got hurt, and no damage to the truck.

The gas tank fell off one day as I was driving along, just as well; it wasn't in a good place under the truck with all the driving through the bush. I just put a jerry can on the roof with a piece of garden hose straight to the carb. That was ten years ago. When Ernie gave me the truck, the suspension on the left side was gone, (literally) it just wasn't there. I fastened a chunk of hard maple between the axle and the box, it worked just fine. We have a quarter mile lane for a driveway, sometimes its a bit rough keeping up with the snow in the winter.

No point blowing it out sometimes as it would fill in an hour later. With a load of hardwood in the back, I blast down that lane two or three times a day through two feet of snow. Best damn vehicle I ever had; it still starts every time I turn the key.

The point of my story is of course, they don't make them like they used to. I was sitting in a hotel in Vegas many years ago (I go there fore the computer show) watching a special on Asian imports and how it was affecting the American economy. It was pretty hard hitting as it was a very serious matter. Buy American, Japan bashing was the theme. They played up the Day of Infamy, even showed a clip of the American figure skating champ at the time Christie Yamaguci and how she didn't get a major sponsor after her brilliant gold medal victory for the USA.

But I was deeply moved by the message and saw the necessity to buy American to save our way of life. I have to admit I did own a couple of Nissan's up until then and was pretty impressed with the cars and the companies. But I felt a deep routed sense of patriotism as a Canadian to buy American made products. A lot of us Canadians love America (as well as Canada). I went out and leased a brand new Ford Exploder, I mean Explorer. I went through four transmissions, Ford just kept replacing them under the warranty program. I wondered how they could afford to do that, apparently I wasn't the only guy that had that problem.

Despite the problem with the transmissions, I traded up to a newer Exploder (damn; I mean Explorer). Apparently, they sorted out the transmission problems. I got a call from my son one afternoon; he crashed the Explorer. Right through an intersection and crashed into a rock; he was OK, the car was a write off. My son told me he put his foot on the break and the car sped up and wouldn't stop. I thought there was something odd about the skid marks across the pavement. I called my buddy Keith Uttley, he did accident reports for insurance companies; I wanted an independent opinion. The investigating cop said he would drop the careless driving charges if we could prove the car was at fault. Keith looked at the wreck at the dealership and said there is indeed something screwy going on here. He recommended we call Transport Canada.

To make a long story short, the cop dropped the charges, this government guy flew out from Ottawa, looked at the car and came to the conclusion "somebody must have been making out in the front seat, and bent the brake pedal closer to the gas pedal in the process". I told him "don't look at me, it must have been the kid"! Keith and I traveled around Ontario from dealership to dealership looking at a whole bunch of 97 Explorers; sure enough somebody had been making out in the front seat of all of them. All the brake pedals were bent right close to the gas pedal.

We called the popular consumer CBC TV show Market Place, they sent out some tough talking folks to check out the scene and said they were going to do a show. Apparently with all the people making out in the front seats these days, it would be a good idea to make a stronger brake pedal; so it wouldn't bend so easily. We check the NHTSA data base, there was a whole pile of pending lawsuits from SUV roll overs, so it's no wonder they didn't have time to check out this issue.

For some reason, the TV folks dropped the show like a hot potato, I guess it was more important not to piss Ford off as opposed to getting the message out and saving lives. Transport Canada wimped out as well and closed the file. They should have recalled all of them, but it was swept under the carpet so to speak. Now somebody had to pay for the wreck, I wasn't going to allow our insurance company to pay it out because it would reflect back on us. Interestingly, Ford dropped the whole thing and didn't go after us for the damage to their car $25G's ; which was quite unusual. I was not impressed with the way they treated me when I spoke to them, my son and a lot of other people could have been killed. Apparently some were. I gave up the fight at the time, but told them I'll be back. Hello.

Always dreamed of owning a big black Yukon, leather seats, the works; the kids were driving to Blue Mountain every weekend for snowboarding. I figured you only live once, and this would go a long way to saving the enconomy; if not the sticker price, then sure as hell the gas this thing used. Fabulous vehicle, at that price though, I was afraid of getting a scratch on it. Never did take it into the bush and the gas was killing me.

Anyways, I thought I would try my luck with Chrysler; Caravans. Other than the fact that the tyranny's kept exploding; some bolt flying out through the transmission wall, it was a pretty good car. I did put on a few miles on it driving around the Great Lakes visiting all the tackle shops. I have to thank Will and Troy at Bear Wheel and Brake, for their endless patience replacing those exploding tyranny's, especially the last time.

But here's the thing that finally got me about the Caravan's; apparently the issue exists in a lot of cars. Some evil son of a b___ decided it would be a good idea to put the gas line filter tucked in behind the gas tank. So if you want to change it, you have to drop the gas tank. I also cannot access the sparks plugs and you need a special tool to change the belt that wears out every couple of months. I checked the NHTSA data base again, apparently I am not the only fella that this is happened to.

Now all this feeds back to the collapse of the economy and especially the problems with the big three car companies in North America. The sales are down, people are loosing their jobs, I have friends that worked for thirty years for GM that may loose their pensions. There is talk about the collapse of the car industry as we know it. Who's going to buy a Chevy, Ford or Chrysler with all this bankruptcy talk going on. It seems nobody has enough confidence in the product or the company to step up and buy a new car; and I can’t say that I blame them.

When I was a young man, guys went to Canadian Tire every spring and bought new points, plugs and condensers and new fan belts. We could change them ourselves without any special tools. I don't want to hear about the bails outs and the restructuring, I just want Dodge to come along and announce they are going to change their ways; and they can start by putting the gas line filter in an accessible spot where I can change it myself. I can't afford the hundred bucks at the dealership to change a three dollar part.

Two of my kids are looking to buy cars, they are university graduates, it will be their first car. My daughter has planted 2000 trees a day in a mosquito infested swamp for two summers to pay her way through school, what am I suppose to tell her, buy a Ford?

You may ask; what does this have to do with fishing? Everything! That little gas line filter is symbolic of the overall problem with our way of life. When we stopped doing shit like that, things will turn around. The problem is there is only so much time left before it is too late for all of us.

It rained too much last fall, we could not get into the bush to get the all the wood we needed. I’m going out into the bush today to scrounge around for some dead wood, to make some more Sharks; I will be taking the 83 Ford, it works as good now as the day it was built. The Shark project has relied on our ability to make do with what we had over the years. Quite literally, we could not have done it without that old truck and that old Husky. As it was, we barely squeaked through, and we are not out of the woods yet.