A Nightmare Vacation Trip
by Jay Dubya

During my fifth year of teaching my wife and I had taken a three-day mini-
vacation to West Virginia. We stopped at Harpers Ferry, the sight of John 
Brown's raid and a historic landmark rich in Civil War era heritage. Then my 
spouse and I proceeded south on scenic Skyline Drive through the Blue Ridge 
Mountains to Luray where we had planned to tour the famous underground caverns. 
It was getting dark and a heavy mountain fog began settling along the elevated 
highway.

I instinctively turned on the headlights to forewarn oncoming traffic of our 
presence while nervously holding and blasting my horn around each successive 
curve and bend.

"Your headlights are becoming dimmer!" my observant wife related.

"You're right!" I concurred. "And now my horn has the blast of a dying mouse 
caught in a trap!"

Luckily my expert driving had safely gotten us through the dense fog to Luray 
where we tarried for the night at a well' appointed motel right near the 
acclaimed caverns. The following morning we toured the beautiful subterranean 
hollows and consumed a casual lunch. Then Joanne and I returned to our motel, 
packed our bags, paid our debts and put all of our belongings in the car trunk.

"Oh no!" I moaned to my wife. "The engine won't start!" The ignition kept making 
a pathetic groaning noise that sounded as if it was suffering from a severe case 
of laryngitis.

I paced to a nearby phone booth, leafed through the yellow pages, located a 
number and spoke with a service station mechanic. After an hour of patient 
waiting the repairman arrived at the scene of distress in his tow truck. After 
examining my wife's car's engine the expert's diagnosis was that I needed a new 
battery cable. 

"Do you have one on your truck?" I inquired. "If not can you get one?"

"Sure do have one sir," the jolly fellow with a strong southern accent replied. 
"I'll need to charge up the battery after I change cables. The whole deal will 
only cost you thirty-five bucks for parts, labor and installation!"

After the defective battery cable had been removed and the new one installed I 
gladly paid the good-natured mechanic for his polite service and generously gave 
him a five-dollar tip.

I proceeded out of Luray and drove through a piedmont section gradually heading 
down from the mountains toward the valley. We stopped at several places of 
interest along the route including a gift shop and a farm market. It was autumn 
and the tree' leaves in and around the beautiful Shenandoah Valley were turning 
to spectacular brown, red and yellowish hues.

"Isn't the scenery magnificent?" I asked Joanne. "This is one of the prettiest 
sights in America!"

"Yes, and this is the vicinity where Johnny Appleseed is said to have planted 
all those apple trees! We read a story about John Chapman in school!" my wife a 
third grade teacher added. "You're right John! It's quite a fantastic panorama!"

It was late afternoon and twilight was slowly descending on the region. I 
flicked on my headlights to prepare for nocturnal driving. The radio announcer's 
voice sounded as if he was going unconscious while suffering from yellow fever. 
My wife turned the station selector dial and the next speaker sounded like a 
hospital patient in traction broadcasting from a very distant intensive care 
ward.

"There's a gasoline station just up ahead!" my alert spouse noticed. "Let's stop 
and see if the new battery cable is loose!"

My automobile sputtered to a halt just beyond the entrance to the garage. 
Several flabby grease monkeys came ambling over and then helped me push the 
green Pontiac into the service station bay.

After raising the hood and generally inspecting the motor, the chief 
neurosurgeon said, "Your car needs a new battery!"

"Install it!" I commanded. "My wife and I are on the brink of mental and 
physical exhaustion. Just install it!"

The battery transplant was successfully completed without the use of any 
anesthesia. I forked over the thirty-seven dollars for the new battery, a 
reasonable sum even by 1970 standards.

"Thank goodness the car didn't stall out in the middle of nowhere!" my wife 
attested.

"I hope this new car isn't a lemon, even if it is a belated wedding gift from 
your father!" I answered.

"Just drive and keep your negative comments to yourself!" Joanne sarcastically 
chastised.

My wife and I waved to the accommodating service-station technicians and re-
embarked on our northern itinerary believing that the electrical difficulty had 
been effectively corrected. Several hours of carefree driving elapsed and we 
were heading northeast toward Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A road construction 
project got us detoured onto a less traveled thoroughfare that had scarcely any 
traffic.

"You must've made a wrong turn somewhere!" my upset wife declared. "I wish you'd 
pay more attention to what you're doing!" she criticized.

"I don't remember seeing any additional detour signs!" I responded. "There's 
hardly any other cars on the road we're on and it's pitch black out. It's almost 
as if we've drifted into some mysterious Twilight Zone!"

"Just stop talking and drive!" my wife exclaimed.

I nearly swallowed my tongue when I perceived my headlights again dimming and 
then flickering on and off doing an animated dance across the deserted two-lane 
highway. My wife was indeed a nervous wreck. Apparitions of looming disaster 
haunted my cerebral processes. We intensely discussed being marooned on a 
forsaken country road infested with bears, skunks and bobcats.

By a miraculous stroke of good fortune the green Pontiac coupe coasted down a 
hill and into a quaint village that featured a small service station. The gas 
station attendant was very cordial and cooperative. He opened the hood, browsed 
the engine with the aid of a trouble light and then intelligently traced the 
origin of the problem down to the distributor. My wife was almost in shock from 
the series of car-trouble' crises we had been experiencing and our only desire 
was to get back on the road as quickly as possible and make it to New Jersey at 
any expense.

"I just happen to have the necessary part in stock!" the gas station guru stated 
in a cute Pennsylvania Dutch accent. "It's used but it'll work perfectly!"

The benign fellow performed the needed distributor exchange, charged up the 
recently acquired battery, checked the replacement battery cable at my request 
and merrily charged me ninety dollars for his labor, expertise and parts.

"How can we get onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike?" I asked. "Once we're on that 
highway I know exactly how to get home!"

"Go down three miles and make a right at the fork in the road," the obliging 
fellow instructed. "Then go three more miles and ya' can't miss the big sign."

"Thanks for fixing our car!" my wife exclaimed with a sigh of relief. "I've 
spent worse three-hours just sitting in the hairdresser's getting a permanent!"

After a half-hour traveling east toward Philadelphia on the Pennsylvania 
Turnpike my headlights again began to dim and then flicker. Almost having 
conniptions and almost being a total basket case I pulled into the next service 
plaza. The night mechanics on duty were cheerful blokes and they ingeniously 
hypothesized that my car's ailment was electrical in nature.

"Do what you need to!" I insisted. "All I want to do is drive back to Jersey 
alive! We should have taken the trip in my Triumph Spitfire sports car!" I told 
my already traumatized wife.

I just had to marvel at the mechanics' mental alacrity. Two servicemen put new 
spark plugs in, changed several crucial wires, adjusted the points and retested 
the battery after charging it. I realized that the car probably didn't need a 
few of those items but I was so stressed out that I didn't care how much the 
parts and labor would cost. I just wanted to get home and escape the living 
nightmare my wife and I were trapped in.

"Your oil is dirty!" one mechanic brought to my attention. "I think you ought to 
change it just to be safe!"

"Go right ahead!" I agreed. I was on the verge of a mild coronary but now the 
engine wizards had to verbally degrade the quality of my engine oil and 
virtually accuse me of being derelict in maintaining my wife's undependable car. 
But I did not dispute their claim or challenge their mechanical knowledge.

"Anything you have to do to make this tin pig run better!" I answered as my wife 
gave me a terrible frown as I critiqued the automobile her father had given us. 
I even consented to the men adding two quarts of anti-freeze and a pint of 
transmission fluid just to make the car run more efficiently.

"They could tell me I need a new cigarette lighter and I would insist that they 
put one in," I revealed to my annoyed and impatient wife. "Neither of us smoke 
but I would still have it done just to have peace of mind!"

"It was your idea to go on this relaxing trip!" my spouse reminded me. "Have you 
got any other great ideas?"

We made it to Philadelphia and passed over the Walt Whitman Bridge into New 
Jersey. About three miles from our home the lights again began losing their 
illumination. I turned into our driveway, shut off the ignition, took a deep 
breath and then began unloading our suitcases and souvenirs from the jinxed car.

The following morning I just managed to get the engine started. Then I drove the 
accursed auto' to the local garage mechanic. He inspected the engine without the 
aid of a sage Ouija Board and immediately determined that the fan belt that 
cranks up the alternator had snapped off and its absence was paralyzing the 
car's entire electrical system, especially at night when additional power was 
required to operate the headlights. The fan belt cost me $3.98 plus labor, but 
the point is that I had spent almost three hundred hard-earned dollars in parts 
and labor for a vital $3.98 part.

A dozen pleasant mechanics had seen the same thing and had come up with the 
wrong theories as to why the lights were flickering. But only the last 
automobile guru in my hometown had the ability to pinpoint and finally alter the 
deficiency. All of the "mechanics" I had encountered were courteous and amiable 
but only one of them knew exactly what he was doing. 

"I now know that education isn't the only field where incompetent performance 
flourishes," I told my wife at the supper table. "This country needs more 
knowledgeable automobile mechanics."

"Be quiet and just eat your lima beans!" Joanne answered back.

But then a revolutionary thought occurred to me. In speaking with each of the 
"mechanics" I had learned that they all had graduated from high school, even 
though they were inept at diagnosing engine problems. But they all also had 
congenial dispositions and temperaments. But their bungling had cost me in 
excess of three hundred dollars in unnecessary expenses. Then it all came to me 
like some supernatural revelation.

"Incompetent performance in high school education is the genesis of the 
irresponsibility we had experienced with the untrained garage mechanics," I 
informed my wife. "They learn how to socialize and get along with each other in 
high school classrooms but their educations grossly unprepared them for their 
future occupations. We have to begin assessing the true damage schools are doing 
to young people!" I argued.

"Now that you've eaten your lima beans," my spouse uttered, "you can now start 
on your broccoli!"

"Joanne, of what value is a society of friendly workers that can't produce, that 
cost others valuable time and money, and that lack adequate skill in their 
jobs?" I asked. "Of what benefit are nice guys that make a motorist pay over 
three hundred bucks for a four dollar fan belt?"

"Don't forget your mashed potatoes," my wife reminded me. "I had to mash them 
all by myself because you were at the auto' mechanic's garage!"

The real education in America is not done by public schools. It' is done by 
large corporations like IBM, AT&T, Microsoft, General Motors and GE. Those 
companies train (there's that evil word) prospective employees to perform highly 
specialized tasks. The thrust of corporate America is to turn a profit and 
company executives realize that highly trained workers contribute to the 
prosperity of the firm and to the stability of the country when they train 
(teach) people to do specific jobs.

High schools could best serve non-college-bound students by setting up curricula 
with large and medium-sized corporations to begin training the future blue-
collar workers that are presently vegetating in academic English and history 
classes and terrorizing teachers in home economics, the cafeteria, mass study 
halls and in family living classes.

An incredible Great Barrier Reef separates the concept of "child-centered 
curriculum" with its liberal expectations from the tough standards that are 
demanded of employees by corporate America. While pursuing the Holy Grail of 
democratic education public schools are performing a terrible disservice to this 
great nation. The child-centered curriculum, democratic sociological education, 
the lack of tough academic standards and the promotion of "cooperative learning" 
are really the antitheses of orderly self-responsibility and self-
accountability. Just imagine the fate of American corporations if the companies 
practiced "worker centered production," "psychological cooperative production 
among employees," "democratic rights on the assembly line" and "sociological 
bottom lines."

The "democratic comprehensive high schools" are producing non-college-bound 
graduates that are grossly unprepared to be absorbed into the mainstream of the 
American free enterprise system. A future citizen needs food in his stomach 
before needing to "socialize." He or she needs clothes on his or her back before 
he or she needs to get along with others in cooperative groups, and students 
need secure jobs based on adequate training before they need a devalued piece of 
parchment inscribed with the official school emblem.

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