Dad and I sat in front of Officer Ballard’s desk, side by side.
When I arrived home from school that day, Dad was waiting for me. He had left work early. Dad never left work early. That morning I had told him about a ticket I had gotten the night before from Officer Ballard - reckless driving. And that Officer Ballard failed our VW Bug on a large number of safety issues. Dad didn’t say much when I told him but there he was waiting for me when I got home.
Dad told me he had called Officer Ballard and wanted me to go with him to meet with Officer Ballard at the police station. I’m not quite sure what the meeting was about and I don’t remember what was even said. I just remember Officer Ballard sitting behind his desk with his neatly groomed mustache explaining to my father what I had done. He did tell my Dad that I had been perfectly polite once I was pulled over.
The night before - on a school night, no less! - I was with the guys: David Forrer, David Bouvé and Jan Mansfield. We were driving to Tastee Diner but on the way, had found a television on the curb, so decided to drive up to the top of the parking garage to toss it off, as was our habit. And I decided we were going to race to the top, taking all the curves sharply, as I steered the VW hand over hand. No such thing as power steering in a 1961 Volkswagen.
But it was fun. Until.
We had not gotten past the second level before lights flashed behind me. I pulled over in the middle of the garage. Officer Ballard asked us all to get out of the car. He told me he had seen me turn into the garage from Old Georgetown Road without using my blinker and without my headlights on. But pulled me over for racing through the garage.
I explained to him that my headlights were on, and that I had used my blinker. He said, well, it sure didn’t look like it and proceeded to conduct a safety inspection on the entire vehicle, bumper to bumper.
It's important to note that as a 1961 Volkswagen, my car was grandfathered in on basic features like not having seat belts or a gas gauge. But Officer Ballard determined that the lights were too weak and that my horn no longer work, along with about a dozen other things. Thankfully, he did not ask about the TV in the back seat.
After he was done, Officer Ballard gave me my ticket and then handed me the inspection form and explained that if I did not get all the repairs done within two weeks, I would be given an additional fine for operating an unsafe vehicle.
That’s what I had to tell my Dad the next morning.
Now Dad loved that car. He’d had it forever. As a kid, I remember hiding in the back scratchy compartment while he “snuck” us onto the Navy base in Charleston. He took it to Guam with him in 1972 onboard the USS Hunley, an officer's perk. We towed it behind our station wagon to California and back. We all loved that car.
But this is what Dad did after he took me to see Officer Ballard. He worked with me to repair the Bug and make it legal again for the streets. Dad was a tinkerer and good at this stuff, so by the weekend, it was ready to be inspected. We actually went to a bicycle shop to buy an electric bike horn which we fastened onto the dashboard. It beeped, but barely.
So Saturday afternoon we drove it to a nearby filling station to get it inspected. The mechanic walked around with his clipboard, checking us off in each category. He even passed the horn. But when he got to the lights he said they were still not bright enough. So we putted back home, having failed the inspection.
But here is what Dad did next. He said, let’s wait until it’s almost closing. By then the mechanic will just want to go home, Dad said, and will have probably had a beer or two. Then Dad opened the engine hood in the back and started rewiring things. Keep in mind, Dad was literally an electrical engineer - with two Masters degrees from MIT no less. He knew what he was doing.
He somehow rewired the Bug to divert power away from the starter in favor of the lights, like Scotty diverting power from the warp drive to the shields. Something like that. If this seems unlikely to you, you need to know that our VW was already pretty funky like this. I kid you not, the windshield wipers went faster with your foot on the gas. And I hardly needed anything to get it started - if I parked on a hill, facing upwards, I could jump start the car in reverse, letting gravity do the work. They just don’t make cars this way anymore, I'm telling you.
So Dad and I drove back to the garage and found the same mechanic. We turned on the lights expectantly. The man shrugged and signed our paper. As he walked away - and I am not making this up - the Bug would not start. I cranked the keys a second and third time, and nothing - just that faint, whirring sound, weakening with each attempt.
Our hearts sunk. And then Dad looked at me, “Quick! Get out and push!” So we both jumped out of the car, and began to push it past the gas pumps as fast as we could. As it started to move, we both jumped in, and I cranked it, and the Bug revved to life and we putted out of the station. The mechanic saw us and began to run after us, his clipboard still in hand. “Keep going!” Dad said.
We got away from the mechanic and drove home, with a freshly approved vehicle, laughing hysterically the whole way. When we got home, Dad did his think and reworked the wiring back from the lights to the starter.
I cannot tell you how much I love that memory of my Dad. He was disappointed in me, and let me know that by bringing me down to the station so I could hear what I did wrong all over again from Officer Ballard.
But he went with me to see Officer Ballard. He did it with me.
And then he worked with me to fix up the old car as only he could. And then rode home with me, laughing the whole way. Together. That’s my Dad. I miss him.