AEROBUS CHAPTER 7 - Maiden Voyage, Saudi Bound I was anxious to drive it. I couldn't drive it in the Capehart military housing area with old plates and expired registration because of the sharp eyes of the Air Force Security Police. It occurred to me that I could take the plates off my Fiero temporarily and use them to get the Aerobus to my house. It was wrong but it was only for a couple of days until Monday when the DMV opened and I could get a temporary permit. A low risk proposition I thought. The speed limit in Capehart is strictly enforced at 20 MPH so I would not have to go fast or unsafe. I decided to proceed and quickly got the Fiero plates installed on the Checker. I fired it up again this time noticing all the gauges on the dash. They all seemed to work except the fuel gauge that was not hooked up since the original tank was still removed. This car continued to surprise me by its ability to survive 10 years of total neglect. I've seen 4 year-old cars with inoperative gauges. This was a plus. I headed out of John's driveway and to the end of his cul-de-sac. With both feet on the brake pedal it came to a fairly reliable stop. I scanned both directions for a police car and, seeing none, I pulled out onto the main street through Capehart. I was not more than a tenth of a mile down the road when a cop approached from the opposite direction. We passed one another but looking into the rear view mirror I saw him execute a quick u-turn and head towards me. Panic now! Try to act normal. Either you get away with it or you don't. Just don't break any other laws in the process. Fortunately Security Police vehicles are not equipped with devices that allow them to verify plate numbers with the DMV computer or it would have been obvious that I was not driving my two-seater Fiero. He followed me all the way to my house preventing me from even noticing how my car was handling on its first outing in 10 years. What's he going to do, I wondered to myself? I parked on the street in front of my house and he came abreast of me. "Hey, cool car," he bellowed "What is it?" I unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth and felt my heart settle down a little, "It's a Checker." "Never heard of it. Who makes it?" "Checker." "Yeah, but who made it?" "Checker. Remember the Checkers cabs in New York from years ago?" "Yeahoh yeah! But I've never seen one of these." "This is the airport limousine version of the Checker cab." "Cool, have fun," he said as he drove away. He followed me all that way just to look at my car? Maybe I am onto something here. Just then my wife, Vilma and son, Charlie came out of the house. Vilma was both embarrassed and amused by the presence of the car in front of the house. "Where are you going to put it?" she asked I was hurt by the question. "Right here," I answered. "But it's so ugly. You're going to leave it here on the street while you're gone to Saudi Arabia? What will the neighbors think?" "Well I could put it in the driveway now." I barely got the words out before Vilma said, "No, no, no, no" "What did the cops want?" Charlie asked. "They were just impressed by the car." "No way! Why?" "I keep telling you this thing has potential. You saw that the first day. You don't think so now?" "Well yeah, I guess, but it's ugly," he said, obviously influenced by his mother's opinion. "Well it's home now to stay. I'll get it smogged and registered on Monday and then I'll take you for a drive." "Ha ha, no way, I'm not riding in that thing until you fix it." Monday I put the date on the title to make it look like I had just bought it and went to the DMV for a temporary permit to drive it. They told me I needed to get the Highway Patrol to certify the VIN number and then get it smogged. I put the proper plates back on it since they were now legal for at least two days and drove to the smog inspection station. The station was able to find it in their reference books but they were very picky. They told me that the car needed to have an automatic choke installed on it. I complained that the manual one worked better. They didn't care. The book said it was equipped from the factory with an automatic choke. They also pointed out that a smog device seemed to be missing that the book called for. It did not describe it well but I thought it might be the Carter Emission Reduction Kit that I had removed, thinking it was some junk someone installed on the car. I couldn't remember if I saved that. The inspector could not describe the item since he had never seen one so I figured I could put that kit back on and insist that it was the missing item, whether it was or not. They also noted that there was supposed to be a "stove-pipe" tube running from the air cleaner to the exhaust manifold. I pointed out that there was no way one could be installed the way the engine was configured. They insisted, so after a while I asked to see the book. I noticed a footnote that said, "when equipped" for that tube so they agreed to let that go. I found that I had saved that Carter kit so I reinstalled it. I went to the parts store and bought an automatic choke and replaced the manual one. I went back to the smog station. By now I was convinced that they were going to notice my missing gas tank. They never even looked. They hooked the car up to the equipment after making sure I had corrected the things they discovered and the car passed the smog check. Remarkable for a car that sat neglected that long. More elation. The very next week the California legislature passed a bill exempting cars of that vintage from smog inspections. Timing is everything. The highway patrolman who came outside to verify the VIN seemed bored and remarkably unimpressed by the car but the verification process went smooth and he gave me a slip to give to the DMV. I went back to the DMV office and presented my smog certificate and VIN verification. I asked about personalized license plates, or environmental plates as they are sometimes referred to in California because proceeds from the sale of these plates go to environmental causes. I went with a list of names that I would like to get, in the order I would like to get them, if they were available. First on my list of potentials was AEROBUS since I knew CHECKER was already taken. "Nope someone's already got that on a Ford station wagon," said the DMV clerk after typing my choice into her computer. "Okay, what about CAHOONA," I thought it would be a clever pun on my last name in reference to The Big Kahuna of Hawaiian fame. "Nope, somebody with your same last name already has that." "Okay try 8 DOOR" "Already taken" "LONG ONE?" I tried. "Your censors probably wouldn't allow that, huh?" "No, they would, but someone's already got it." That exhausted all the ideas I brought with me that day. I thought for a while, while the clerk's fingernails rattled on the edge of her desk. "Well, try CHECKER. I'm sure someone's already got it but there's nothing else I can come up with right now." "It's available," she answered so quickly that I didn't think she was talking to me. "Sir, that's available." She repeated. "C-H-E-C-K-E-R ? You sure?" I said, astounded. "Yes, do you want it?" "Well yeah, I would have asked for it first but I was sure it was taken." "Okay you'll get it in the mail in 6 to 8 weeks." What a remarkable experience, I thought to myself as I drove home. I still had trouble believing my good fortune. I remembered seeing a lot of Checkers in California on the membership roster that the Checker Club had sent. So many in fact that California had their own chapter. Joe Pollard, the parts man I had talked to at Paul Ryan's house was the president. Why didn't he have that plate, I wondered? I called Joe when I got home. I was disappointed when I talked to him about getting a replacement fuel tank. "I can sell you one for $250," he offered. "Paul had one set aside for me for $50," I complained. "All the cars at Paul's ranch are mine that I was storing there except for the one Paul drove so I don't know what he was talking about." I didn't want to discuss the issue further until I was sure I could not fix mine so I thanked him for his time but asked a question before hanging up. "Why didn't anyone in California have the license plate CHECKER?" "What do you mean?" "Well, I just went to the DMV and got that plate?" "C-H-E-C-K-E-R ?" Joe spelled it out for confirmation just as I had at the DMV. "Yeah that's my plate now." "Goddam, that plate's been tied up for years. How'd you get it?" "I just walked in and asked for it." "Well, it must be good timing on your part. I've asked for it every year." Joe seemed disappointed. "Let me know if you ever give it up." "Sure I will." I said thinking, 'I'll trade it to you for a gas tank.' "Talk to you later." With the registration taken care of the Checker was now as far along as I was going to take it until I returned from Saudi Arabia. The plates would arrive in the mail and Vilma could install them. I had a paper sticker in the back window that served as a temporary registration. It expired in two months, plenty of time for the plates to arrive. I could now park it legally on the street in front of my house. I would have four months in Saudi Arabia to consider how to proceed on it next. The things it still needed most were an exhaust system and new tires. Those would total at least as much as I had already spent on the car. I was now convinced the car was worth putting money into but not until my return. It wasn't going to be driven while I was gone. I knew Vilma wasn't going to drive it. Saudi Arabia was about as harsh as I expected. I tried to get there during Desert Storm but wasn't able to. Now, six years later I was getting my chance to see the place. I was going to a location called Prince Sultan Air Base, a Saudi Air Force Base. Hundreds of millions of dollars of Saudi oil money had been spent building the place. It was a state-of-the-art showplace base that the Saudis had not even bothered to occupy yet. None of that had anything to do with us. We were given a huge area on the base with no buildings. A place suitable for our tents and other signs of "temporary" occupation. The Saudis were sensitive about any kind of permanent presence in their country by outside military even though we'd been in their country since the war six years earlier. We had been moved to Prince Sultan following the truck bombing of the barracks at Daharan a year earlier where a number of airmen perished. Prince Sultan is extremely remote and provides security by its remoteness. You have plenty of time to see the bad guys coming when you are out there. There were 4000 troops there, mostly US Air Force with some US Army manning the Patriot missile batteries for our defense against missile attack. There were also French and British Air Force personnel flying patrol missions over Iraq in the southern no-fly zone, an aftermath of the war. It's crowded in the coalition area of Prince Sultan, a tent city for 4000. In spite of my seniority and 22 years of service at that point, I was assigned a tent with five other people and immediately started to experience a lack of privacy, the only significant inconvenience of the next four months. The tents were air conditioned by a big roaring fabric tube called a plenum that ran down the inside peak of the tent's ceiling. It was connected to a standard air conditioner outside that also had a roar of its own that cloth walls could not shield. It worked fairly well and when it failed the absence of noise was sure to wake you well before the absence of cool air. I set up my corner of the tent complete with the laptop computer I had brought with me. I scrounged up a little desk to set it on. I was determined to write to as many Aerobus owners as I could while I was there and learn everything about them in preparation for my return to Sacramento. I started by writing to 6 Aerobus owners. I got a response from one who wanted to sell me some parts and nothing from any of the others. The motto of the Checker Car Club of America is. "A Checker Owner is Never Alone." I was feeling pretty alone in my search for Aerobus information. It wasn't until long after my return to Sacramento that I got connected with an internet Checker bulletin board that has since resulted in some very helpful correspondence and some fine relationships. More on that in future episodes. My job in Saudi Arabia involved flying with Air Force linguists, people who spoke Arabic and other languages. They were a real dedicated bunch of people doing a remarkably important job over there under arduous conditions. Many of them had been to Saudi Arabia dozens of times, which made my 120 day tour seem insignificant. They had all been trained at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California just three hours from Sacramento. That was a part of California I had not traveled to in my 6 years stationed in the state. I decided to go visit the place when I got back. As it turned out Monterey was to play a much larger role in the story of my Checker. The Saudi Arabian desert proved to be a hostile place during the summer. I was taking a shower one morning and got burned by the hot water. I charged out of the shower tent looking for the moron who turned the water heater on. No one was around and the hot water heater was off. I later learned that I couldn't take a shower after 9 in the morning because the sun would heat the big rubber water bladder so fast that the water would burn you. All water had to be trucked in to the base by third country nationals working in Saudi Arabia, mostly Filipinos and Pakistanis working for Saudi companies. Shower water was not potable. To prevent another truck bombing all trucks had to be completely unloaded. Water trucks weren't allowed on the compound. They had to pump their cargo into a pipe that was off base and the water flowed into holding tanks where US trucks, working inside the fence, would pump it out and deliver it to the bladders located around all the latrine and shower tents. Our drinking water all came on a tractor trailer carrying hundreds of 20-liter bottles designed for water coolers. The security people could see right through the cargo on those trucks so there was no need to unload it. We drank a lot of water during the summer when the daytime highs reached 140 degrees. That was a frightening temperature to experience. Despite all the hardships there I came away enjoying the experience. The military operates best under arduous situations. That's when most petty complaints disappear and people bond and pull together towards a common goal. Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq was the primary enemy but another common enemy was the heat and we were all subject to it regardless of our rank. If one person did something to help someone else we were all beneficiaries. I'm not sure I would have had time to correspond properly if any Aerobus owners had written to me. Between long work shifts there were not many spare hours left. I corresponded with my family daily by e-mail with my older son, Willie, acting as intermediary. He spent hours on the computer and would alert Vilma and Charlie when e-mail came in. I was often able to get a morale call in to the house as well. Vilma complained several times that the Security Police had knocked on the door to tell her to get the Checker off the street. Apparently they were only looking at the expired plate and not the paper temporary registration in the window. I never found out why they ignored it and continued to bother her instead. She got the idea that they just wanted to see it move so she was driving it from the front of our house to the front of the neighbor's house. She would only leave it there a few hours before moving it back. I gave her credit for being willing to drive it at all but told her she didn't need to. One day when I called the house Vilma reported that a tire had exploded. "What do you mean exploded?" "I was outside working on the garden and I thought someone shot me. I looked over and saw the car shaking and then I thought they shot the car. I was so scared I ran inside. When Willie came home I had him check it and he saw a big hole in the side of the tire. Do you think someone shot it?" "No dear," I said, trying to calm her. "The tires were bad anyway and one must have given out." "What do I do now? I can't drive it anymore." "Call John and have him come over and put the spare tire on it." "No, I don't want to bother him." "I talked to John before I left and he agreed to help you in situations like this. Call him and get it fixed or, for sure, the cops will hassle you more." "How come the plates aren't here yet?" Vilma asked." "I don't know, call the DMV and ask them. They should be there by now, it's been 8 weeks." I was sure Vilma wouldn't bother with the hassle of calling the DMV and would let herself be harassed by the cops. They would really step up the heat once that temporary paper sticker expired. I called another friend and asked him to check with the DMV. He called me back later and said that they had mailed the plates over a month ago. They told him they would send out two more and an extended temporary sticker. The sticker arrived within a week and had an expiration that took it beyond my anticipated return home. The plates never did arrive which I found suspicious. A month later during one of our phone conversation Vilma told me that the base housing office wanted the Checker off the street. They told her to store it somewhere. I told her to argue with them. It was properly registered and had as much right to be on the street as any other car in the neighborhood. I think she found the car an embarrassment and would have preferred that it be moved. She wasn't good at arguing with people anyway. I called the housing office myself and chewed them out. They were apologetic. I got the impression that they didn't look at the registration, they just saw an ugly car and assumed it was not parked legally. They promised to lay off. My four months in Saudi Arabia passed quickly and I was on my way home. |
