𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐑𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟔: 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐲!

 𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐑𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐫

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟔: 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐲!

"Dan? I ditched your car. I think the back window is broken." That was my girlfriend at the time, on the phone to me. I had let her borrow my beloved J2000 to go to Cobden to buy a pack of cigarettes. How the back window could be broken taking the ditch without the car being demolished was beyond me, but it immediately sounded very expensive.

It was. The reason the back window was broken was because she had parked the car between two very large and completely unmovable maple trees. My beautiful J2000 SE was now about 6 to 8 inches narrower from one end to the other than it used to be.

My perfect paper route car was a total write off. I had delivered countless newspapers with it over almost equally countless kilometers in the middle of the night in all weather conditions without getting a scratch on it, and she completely wrecked it getting one pack of cigarettes in perfect weather in broad daylight.

Great. Just friggin' great...

I never got to find out how long the J2000 would have lasted because she took that luxury away from me.

Now I was in a pickle. I needed another car and fast. I took the truck out on the route that night and went shopping for another J Car hatchback the next day.

The same car lot that yielded my J2000 produced my next one: A red 1984 Chevy Cavalier RS hatchback in very nice condition. It was all red, unlike the one in the picture.

My days of comfort and convenience behind the wheel were over, though. Whereas the J2000 was automatic with power windows and power tailgate latch and rear wiper and washer, the Cavalier was a 5 speed with crank windows and a manual tailgate and no wiper or washer. No sunroof, either, or anything else, for that matter. The only thing the Cavalier gave me that the J2000 didn't have was radio with very novel AM Stereo, and more power.

Whoever ordered that car was a serious music lover. That AM Stereo graphic equalizer auto reverse Symphony Sound and speakers cost almost 700 bucks plus tax in in 1984!

I got to listen to my favorite AM station, 540, '54 ROCK' in AM Stereo. It was all classic rock and I loved it. For some reason I can't remember the main disc jockeys anymore, but the secondaries were Wendy Daniels and Go-Go Galini. And commentary by toothy Earl McRae. He looked like Robert Culp from 'The Greatest American Hero' with a permanent grin. I particularly remember his piece called "Pass the Cop!" It was all about police cars driving slower than the speed limit and everyone being afraid to pass them even though it was perfectly legal. "Never mind them! They're being jerks on a power trip! Pass the cop!" Earl McCrae was intense and funny, and his sports commentaries were even more scathing than his daily life observations.

54 ROCK became licensed for FM and became 106.9 FM 'The Bear' until 2013. It somehow lost a little of its spirit in the transition from AM Stereo to FM Stereo. After that it became 'JUMP', and that's all their music makes me want to do. Off of a building. 54 ROCK was the best radio station I ever heard and I loved it. There was something really, really special about AM Stereo, and I only ever got to hear it in that Cavalier. I've never had a car with AM Stereo before or since. I don't know if AM Stereo even exists anymore, and I didn't know it did until I heard it in that car.

The J2000 was powered by a very wheezy 1.8 liter carbureted engine, whereas the Cavalier had a stroked version of that engine increased to 2 liters and was equipped with throttle body fuel injection. Coupled with the 5 speed manual, it was a lot more responsive than the J2000.

The SE (Special Edition) package of the J2000 was all focused on comfort and convenience. The RS (Rally Sport) was geared to sportiness and handling. I didn't think it was possible up until that point, but the Cavalier handled even better than the J2000. I think it was all in the fact it had heavier sway bars. Man, did that baby ever handle. I could throw it around into a bootlegger's getaway at practically any speed on a gravel or snowy road with almost 100 percent predictability. One time in the winter Keith Martin was unknowingly following me a half mile or so back on Fletcher Road when he saw the car ahead of him just suddenly turn broadside and slide sideways down the road. He exclaimed, "What in the world!?" Then the car ahead of him shot off out Pleasant Valley Road. When the cloud of snow cleared, he could see the unmistakable profile of my red Cavalier hatchback emerge from it. "Oh. That's just Danny!" And he relaxed. Nobody was wiping out. Folks were just getting their morning paper. Everyone knew I drove like a traveling stunt show driver.

Besides the rather huge inconvenience of no longer having power windows, and now having my right hand taken up rowing gears along with folding papers, there was a whole new aspect that never presented itself with the automatic transmission of the J2000: Well over 200 'stops' in a 5 speed manual transmission car equaled about 1000 applications of the clutch in the morning. And that presented something I had never experienced before: "Routney!", as I called it, or Route Knee.

When I was a young farmboy, I relished hard work. I loved using my body to its limits. I was very strong, although I didn't look it as a kid, and I was athletic and agile. Farm kids used to be fit, strong, and fast. My Scottish Highlands bloodline gave me a good helping of all of those, and the application of them in an active diversified farm honed them to a sharp edge. You had to be fit, strong, and fast on a farm or you got hurt. And you still did. You just used those attributes to get hurt less.

In those days we had a Cockshutt manure spreader. A 480, if I remember correctly. It was a large, modern, well built machine with 'bear claw' paddles like a New Holland model. It was a great spreader, except for two things: The ratchet system for the apron chain needed repair more often than it should have, and it had the absolutely for sure thee WORST jack ever attached to a farm implement in history. For some unknown reason, somebody at Cockshutt (or Oliver; I don't know which company designed it, as they were available each way) somehow got it in their head that it would be a good idea to attach a car bumper jack to a large manure spreader. Maybe it was bean counters more than engineers, but whoever it was set me up for a lifetime of trouble.

Those old bumper jacks had a square tube with notches up one side. The ratchet part of the jack indexed and ran up and down those notches. They were SOMEWHAT okay for a car in a pinch, but they were nowhere near sturdy or reliable enough for a manure spreader. The notches were too shallow and didn't allow a solid enough perch of the jack dog in them, leading to sudden failure. Almost any of those spreaders still in existence have had their garbage jacks replaced with something else because the original had a NASTY habit of just suddenly losing its grip and dropping the tongue on the ground. We ALWAYS kept our feet clear of the tongue on that spreader when hooking or unhooking in case it suddenly dropped. The picture shows an older, smaller version of that spreader that actually still has one of those junk jacks still in place. I hope it works better than ours ever did. The Oliver spreader (the green one) pictured was like ours, and you'll notice the factory jack has been wisely replaced with a different one.

As fortune would have it, one day our spreader went down for another apron chain ratchet repair. We needed the tractor for something else so we unhooked it and left the spreader sitting in the yard near the shop where we could tend to the repair on a wet day. That wet day came and Dad set to the repair on the ratchet assembly. The dog for the ratchet always wore prematurely or the return spring broke. It wasn't a very big repair, but it was just kind of a nuisance.

Whenever the jack would fail, it made a particular sound just as it was going to. Like a metallic creak. Then it dropped, and now it was a pain in the neck to get the tongue back up and the jack set again. We found the easiest way was to sling a chain under it and across the lower 3 point hitch arms of a tractor and lift it back that way.

Well, yours truly, strong in back but weak in brain, happened to be walking past the spreader when I heard the 'creak!' I jumped into place and grabbed the tongue just as it dropped. Dad, at the back of the spreader had heard it too, and couldn't understand why it hadn't slammed to the ground, when he saw me holding it up by the tongue. "DANNY! DROP IT!"

"SET THE JACK!" That grunted yell was through very tightly clenched teeth. This was at the very outer edge of my body's ability and strength.

"DROP IT!"

"SET THE JACK!"

"DROP IT!"

"SET THE JACK!" Dad could see I wasn't going to do as I was told and he rushed to the front and hastily reset the jack. I dropped it onto the jack and immediately hit the ground on my back, in an absolutely ferocious muscle spasm. Only the back of my head and my heels were touching the ground. The rest of me was sprung up in a reverse arch of excruciating pain.

Dad stood by, almost frantic and helpless as the spasms tore me apart. I was screaming my pain through teeth clenched so tightly the enamel was chipping and spraying off of them in my mouth. "DANNY! You should have dropped it! Why didn't you drop it?! You've hurt yourself bad!" The spasms continued until they tore most of the muscles in my back and my thighs and I collapsed, completely spent and exhausted.

Stupid Scottish stubbornness. I am paying for that moment of triumph of body over machine to this very day. As the tongue dropped and I caught it, besides the harm to my back, something else happened: I felt and heard something in both of my knees break. There are orange slice shaped cartilages on both sides of both of your knees that support them. I broke all four of them when I caught the weight of that heavy spreader falling. Going into a squat any time ever after and until this very day resulted in a very sharp and noticeable 'CRACK!' I always hated going to the supermarket because it seemed anything I ever wanted was on the bottom shelf and my availing myself of it would be punctuated by a very loud 'CRACK!' that should have only come from a man four times my age and could be heard up and down the whole aisle.

I replaced that stupid jack with the one from our smaller, retired John Deere ground driven manure spreader. It wasn't the best implement jack ever invented, but it was a HUNDRED times better than that piece of junk I gratefully threw on the scrap pile. It took me most of one morning to switch it over, but it was one of the best machinery conversions I ever did.

So now I had busted knees driving a manual transmission car on a 200 plus 'stop' rural route. The repetitive applications of the clutch soon evidenced themselves in something altogether new: an excruciating lockup and swelling of my left knee. "Routney". My right knee would also do it from time to time from repetitive applications of the gas and brake pedals, but it was my left that really got it. In an episode of routney, I would be reduced to 24 hours of laying on the couch in intense pain and immobility. Until the swelling would come down and the cartilages would finally snap back into place, I just wished someone would shoot me. I spent years like that, until I just offhandedly mentioned it to my chiropractor after a back adjustment - likely also connected to that pivotal and avoidable event. He showed me an exercise that could reset them in a minute or two and prevent me from being down for a day of wishing I was dead pain. All I had to do was sit on the edge of a chair, and use my hands like a sling to cradle my knee in them and just let my lower leg hang. Gently swing my lower leg back and forth until I perceived a tension building in my knee. At that point, kick my foot out and up, and there would be a 'snap!' as the cartilages popped back into place. In a few minutes the pain would be gone. I even learned how to do it in bed under the covers. From that one simple exercise I never lost a day to routney again.

One of the things I also learned to do to alleviate routney was to float the gears in the car. I only clutched to put it in first gear (or reverse) and just shifted by RPM matching from then on. That drastically reduced wear and tear on my knee, and the clutch as well. To save shifting, I skipped second gear, and went from first to third and then from third to fifth if I could. Some places it was 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th, but any reduction in shifting saved me and the car.

I pulled the air shocks out of the J2000 and installed them in the Cavalier. If memory serves me correctly, I happened across this very special third brake light at the Antrim Flea Market and installed in the J2000. It was a combination third brake light and signal light unit. The middle, brake light portion lit up in bright red 'STOP' letters, and the outer, signal light portions lit up in vivid amber directional arrows. It was absolutely perfect for paper delivery. It was nothing short of imperative that anyone on the road knew what I was doing, so that light was a Godsend to me. I suppose, besides whatever God's plan was for me, it was one of the things that kept me from ever having an accident in 16 years of paper deliveries. I have never seen another one like it since, and can't even find a picture of one online now. I pulled it out of the J2000 and installed it in the Cavalier as well. It made the switch from the Cavalier to the next car as well. Nothing was more important to me in a route buggy than that light. There was no mistaking my intentions when that red 'STOP' and flashing orange '→' lit up in front of someone. The J2000 only had all red signal lights. That light greatly augmented them for safety. The Cavalier had amber signal lights which, coupled with the amber signals of the auxiliary light, made for an exceedingly graphic display of my intentions. When I put on the hazard lights, four big amber lights would be flashing at the rear of the car. Only a completely blind person couldn't see them. The light was installed inside the car, where it was fully protected from the elements, shining out through the window of the hatchback. On dark, rainy nights, those lights kept me alive mingling with tractor trailers on deadly Highway 17. They could be seen for miles in a straight line, and they came in very useful in the next chapter.