Me and Dad, and the worn out sparkplug

“I’m not using that thing,” I said, Looking at dad’s old saw bench in the behind the house. “I like my limbs too much.”

It hasn’t run in months,” Dad scratched his chin. “It doesn’t even have a blade on it.”

“But you can put one on and that’s when I’m not going to touch it.”

“I just need you to help me see if it still goes.”

Mum interrupted us. “Just do it. It will shut him up for a while.”

“Alright,” I said. “But if I get my head cut off, I won’t talk to you ever again.”

“Fair enough,” said mum. “I’ll still love you though.” She smiled that mum smile, genuinely not bothered by my imminent dismemberment.

Dad and I walked out the back. My dog Sookie, thinking that there was a walk in the offing, jumped up and trotted along with us his tail wagging violently. He followed us as far as the saw bench before abandoning us for the shade of back fence.

Dad had declared his retirement several months earlier, and the saw hadn’t done any work in that time. Much to everyone in the family’s relief. The thing was a death trap. Years earlier, dad almost lost an arm while using the bloody thing. While cutting wood with it, a flying chip of wood hit dad on the toe of his boot. When he leaned down to look at his toe, he put too much of his weight on the sliding bench top. It did what it was paid to do and slid toward the spinning wheel of sharpened steel sharks teeth.

Everyone in the area knew the high pitched sound of the saw ripping its way through wood. The dull pitched sound of saw on flesh brought everyone in the immediate area bolting into the yard, expecting a gory mess.

They found him standing staring in wide eyed amazement and relief at an inch long nick in his forearm. Being the talky bloke that he was, dad said, “I think that’s it for today.” He shut the thing off, then went home early.

That episode had made more of an impression on me than it had on him, because he kept using it for years afterward, and I refused to go near the bloodthirsty monster.

For some reason, dad had now got it in his head to see if he could get it started. And for some reason, he needed my assistance.

Standing by while dad uncovered the thing was like taking part in the lamest game of pass the parcel. Two dozen hessian feed bags covered the motor, and the belts that made the saw spin. A big square iron lid from something else crowned the whole affair. That was held in place by a giant block of dry red gum.

“Want to give us a hand?” asked dad as he manhandled the lid off the motor.

“I’m giving you morale support,” I said in return.

He finished unwrapping the vicious machine like a six year old at Christmas, finally exposing exposing the vivid blue Briggs and Stratton engine.

After examining the motor for rust or damage or swallows nests, Dad unscrewed the petrol cap and funneled in some of the red tinted fuel. He then pumped the rubber nipple with his thumb to suction the stinking fire water through the lines.

He took one look at me standing there with my hands in my pockets, strategically standing just out of small motor fragmentation range, waiting to stamp out the flames in the grass, or on dad’s jumper, if necessary and maybe even if he didn’t need it.

He favoured me with his “Now watch how it’s done” look, which is remarkably similar to his “I told you so” and “the dog loves me more than he does you” looks, and took hold  of the black T shaped handle of the pull starter.

He reefed the cord suddenly and without warning, his body rippling like a reed in the wind, or perhaps like a 60 year old man who weighs 100 pounds wet when he suddenly encounters sudden resistance. There was a “WHUP, WHUP” as the crankshaft reluctantly turned over, then nothing. Dad stood looking at the motor as though it had personally insulted him.

“It’s a bit quieter than I remember it, Dad,” I said, grinning my “look how what’s done?” grin.

“Ok then, smart arse,” he said. “You have a go.”

I stepped up to the motor and took a two handed grip of the starter. “Stand back, this is going to shoot the mice right out of the exhaust pipe.” I stand about 6 inches taller than my father and weigh about sixteen times as much. When I reefed on the starter cord, the entire saw bench rocked a little and the crankshaft spun wildly “WHUP,WHUP, WHUP, WHUP” before stopping dead. “Huh,” was all I could say when I noticed there were no mice flying through the cool morning air.

Dad was a little concerned now, he hadn’t even mentioned my failure to out pull starter him and was looking enquiringly at the decidedly non-running motor. I knew better than to interrupt him when he was musing over machinery, especially if the only advice I had to give was “maybe we could go inside and pretend it never happened.” Something was up and he would not rest now until he had it sorted out.

“Maybe it’s the plug?” he asked of nobody, especially me. The old Bedford truck was nearby, and though it was as retired as dad, he still kept his tools scattered all over the floor of the cabin, under the pedals. Dad collected the spark plug spanners and deftly plucked the rubber coated terminal from the terminal nut, or as I prefer to call it, the tip.

Within seconds he had unscrewed the plug and was turning it over in his hand, examining it for damage. Squinting, he peered into the electrode gap, or sparky bit, for those of you who are technically declined, like me. He blew into the gap to dislodge any invisible bits of carbon that may have blocked the spark.

“The plug looks alright,” he said, screwing it back into place. “There mustn’t be any spark from the starter.”

“OK,”I said, half interested. “How do we check that?”

“We need to see if there is a spark hitting the plug when you pull the starter.”

“OK,” I said again, not sure where this was heading.

For the first test, he held the rubber coated terminal as close as he could to the tip of the plug, hoping to see it arc across when I pulled the starter cord again

I gave it a good reef. “WHUP, WHUP, WHUP” went the turning crankshaft.

“Did you see it spark?” Dad asked me from his spot inches away from the plug.

I didn’t see anything,” I said. I was too busy pulling the starter for you.”

“Hmm,” said Dad in that frustrated tone of grunt. “Do it again.”

Being the obliging son that I am, I did it again. Neither of us saw anything, again.

“Maybe it’s too bright out here to see it,” He said, and proceeded to strip the insulation coating from the end couple of inches of the wire. He held the wire close to the tip of the plug and said, “Give it another go.”

Again, we couldn’t see any spark.

Dad thought about it another minute or two, then said “Maybe it’s the lead.” He grasped the exposed wire at the end of the lead with his fingers and said “Give it a pull.”

While I am a dutiful son, who would never disobey his father, I felt compelled to say something.

“Are you sure you don’t want to try another plug first?”

He shook his head. “No, try this first.”

“Are you sure?” I asked one final time.

“Yup,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”

I am not very scientific, but I had a fair inkling of what might happen.

“OK,” I said, already wearing my “I told you so” face.

I gripped the rubber handle of the starter cord with both hands and gave it one mighty wrench.

This time, the unimpressed “WHUP, WHUP” of the crankshaft was drowned out by an ear splitting lightning “CRACK!”

I turned back to face dad, the morning air smelling of burnt ozone. Dad sat in the dew damp grass about five feet away from the motor violently shaking his hand and muttering a succession of explicit and medically impossible blasphemies.

“Did it spark that time?” I asked, a picture of gloating innocence.

He didn’t answer me. Instead, he stood up and silently walked in a circle flicking his hands as if he was trying dislodge something sticky and unpleasant. This went on for a couple of minutes, and I began to worry that I may have somehow lobotomized him and that from now on he might start voting liberal. Worse than that, Mum would not be happy with either of us, and that was a situation best avoided, wherever possible. Eventually, to my relief, the circling slowed and the flapping of hands waned to a point that I was almost sure I had done no permanent damage.

Dad looked at me as he walked back to the motor. My relief was complete when I saw that his good eye was looking clear and focused. The bad eye, it could be doing anything and would not be of any diagnostic value to us.

He grabbed ahold of the naked wire and said “Do it again.”

“What?” I asked, unsure of the jolt had maybe affected me worse than him.

“Do it again,” he said, unperturbed by his sudden introduction to practical physics.

“Uuumm,” I hesitated, torn between loyalty to my father and involuntary patricide. “I really don’t think I should.”

“Nah, it’s okay.” He said, looking intently at the recalcitrant motor. “I want to check something.”

I wasn’t convinced. After all, there was really only one possible result of me pulling the starter again, and I am fairly certain it involved gaining the ability to taste colours or possibly seeing through time. While both of these seem kind of neat at first, the ability to tie your own shoe laces or wipe your own bum are much more useful in day to day life.

“Are you sure?” I asked, giving him a final chance to back out without losing face, or the ability to use a TV remote. “Cos, I think it might have done some damage just now.”

“It’s okay,” he answered, “I’m fine, the buzzing sound in my head will go away in a little bit.”

“Alright then,” I said, resigned to having to explain to the police that it technically isn’t murder if he wanted me to do it. I pulled the cord again, heaving against the resistance of the heavy crankshaft. The harsh crack of lightning arced from wire to finger, depositing Dad on his bum in the grass several feet away. This time he held his stung hand up before his eyes as though he were holding the secrets to the universe in his tingling palm. This time when he rose, he didn’t walk circles, flapping his arms, but a rather more complex shape, all edges and angles, muttering non sequiturs that DaVinci would no doubt have understood and turned in to a spacecraft of some kind.

To be honest, I felt less worried and more proud, as though I may have unlocked the secrets of human potential with a thirty year old Briggs and Stratton motor with a dicky spark plug. After a while Dad stopped pacing, apparently happy with the crop circle he had just created. He walked back to the non-operational motor and stood with his hands twitching on his hips.

“You know, I don’t think it is the lead,” he said. “I think I’ll try another plug in a minute.”

He started walking to the house, leaving me behind. “I suddenly feel like I want to eat some purple.”