Chapter 3
Oil and Lemon

The month-old van's electrical problems might have had something to do with the interior reconstruction that was done on the vehicle in Indiana, but those folks had never touched the engine. The oil leak was clearly a manufacturer's defect. Canceling an entire summer vacation on account of some technical difficulties was out of the question. The only thing they could do if they wanted to stay on the road and stay on schedule was to keep putting oil in the car—so that's what they did. Neither Ron nor Peggy knew a thing about motors, but they had plenty of experience driving VWs on long trips. They knew how quirky they were, but it seemed no matter what went wrong it was usually never anything major. They crossed their fingers, kept the dipstick wet, and kept their sights to the road ahead until they got where they had set out to go. They stopped at various mechanics along the way in hopes that there was someone who could fix the problem quickly. But at every garage the advice was the same: It's a new car, take it back to the dealer. So they kept denying and kept heading south, pushing and praying full-speed towards the Mexican border. In Texas, the last mechanic they saw warned them that if they planned to go into Mexico, the warranty would cease to be valid. They held their breath and crossed the Rubicon.
Other than the trail of tears they were depositing beneath them, most of the car was running strong and fine. If worse came to worse, it was still habitable. They had all the comforts of home with them and could survive anywhere. They kept the faith and they kept moving. Ron was in awe of his wife. He had never seen anybody with such determination and drive. He realized it was futile to get in her way and he followed her commands like a loyal first mate. We all looked up to her. Whatever she told us, we accepted, even when we were worried and scared. She erased all our doubts and she never took no for an answer. We were going to make it to Mexico and we were going to land on the moon. We were like astronauts in our vulnerable little pajama spacesuits, and she was our mission control. She was Houston, and our life was in her hands. It was going to be a nail-biter right until splashdown.
There is a great lesson here. Mom insisted that the only way to know if something is trustworthy or not is to trust it. That's the only way you find out. Peggy had more faith in that car than probably anything or anybody in the world. She knew she had to trust the van. Most people would have taken it back to the factory and washed their hands of it. But she didn't do that. And because she didn't do that the first time, she didn't do it the second time, or the third time, or ever. She kept believing and kept trusting and kept pushing forward. Most people don't have that kind of faith in a car. They believe there is some cruel or ironic rule in life that when you really need something, it will inevitably let you down. They believe it is foolish to trust a machine, but to her this special kind of faith was natural; it was her personal source of strength, a test of her will and character. She'd been abandoned before, by life, in a way, and that had made her determined to never let it happen again.
The VW may not have been built perfectly, but it could be re-built. With a little patience and optimism and understanding, it could be made stronger and better. There existed an uncanny bond between her mind and the car. Their inner workings contained the same driving force. It was intense at times; it was even spooky. She treated the car as if she depended on it for her survival. She helped it too. It needed to be made aware of its own potential. It needed coaxing, patience, encouragement, tough love, a kick in the pants—the kind only a real mother can provide. She understood that it wasn't automatically born with that self-awareness, that sense of sureness and dependability. It took time and practice, trial and error, uphill battles, tests and tribulations. It might take years to become what it was truly capable of being. If the car broke, you repaired it. It broke again and you repaired it better—until it broke less and less, and finally could withstand anything, and never be defeated. For forty-four years she propped that vehicle up, supported it, pushed it, loved it. It owed her for that, and in return, the car responded in kind—if you think that's possible; if you believe that a car can trust you back, and remain faithful and true and loyal to its owner. It can!
The keep-replacing-the-oil strategy held out for the last and hardest part of the long journey. The car was maxed out as far as its capacity and load were concerned and Peggy kept stretching it to its limits. The final test was traversing the treacherous mountain passes of central Mexico. The road was deteriorating and narrow, with dozens of blind curves and no railings. One more rainstorm and there wouldn't even be a road; it was literally eroding off the cliff. I remembered that drive like a nightmare. I was absolutely petrified. I clung to the floor of the car and refused to look out the window. It was a thousand-foot drop-off to an empty canyon below. I thought we were going to die for sure. I was only eight years old; I was too young. The morbid headlines flashed across my mind: "Family of Five Plummet to Their Deaths: Oil Leak Suspected."
Peggy never blinked. She was a fearless and competent driver. She insisted on tackling the villainous mountain single-handedly, and Ron let her do what she did best. We made the final steep climb late at night. It was black as hell, no other cars, no lights, nobody except us, winding around the mountain in the dead of night, tightroping the abyss. When the worst part was finally over, we saw the dimly speckled lights of San Miguel in the distance. It was like seeing angels at the end of a tunnel. We were safe. We were there. We had arrived.

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