10/19/97 ... Owl feathers and a hair shirt.

Red Owl is screaming in the morning. It's hard when a loyal companion is in pain, and accusing it of mechanical malfeasance can't dispel the anguish. Maybe your car is just dumb metal, but this noble sub-compact is a friend.

Before we set out on our odyssey, almost 50,000 miles ago, the Festiva was whining intermittently upon starting. I had deduced the bird either needed a new fanbelt, or a throw-out bearing in the clutch. But replacing the belt, and the clutch (which was definitely kaput), didn't dispel the greeting, and our mechanic said it was in the tranny. It might last 100K, or it might go tomorrow, shrug. We folded our wallet, and set off into the unknown.. whine and all.

As it turned out, the Festiva flew contentedly around America, only mewling on rare occasions, as if to keep us alert. We dubbed the beast Red Owl in the tall timber of British Columbia, but it was not of the screeching variety. A funny overheated smell upon stopping, quickly dissipated and forgotten, a dead cooling fan, a flat battery, new tires, fading brakes in the Sierras, timing belt in San Diego, but hardly a squawk.. until now.

Columbus Day weekend we went down to Cape Cod for a gathering of old friends. Maybe Red thought we were setting out on another long journey without giving her a full vetting, or maybe he was just playing prank with us a couple hundred miles from home. I any case the Owl howled all around Orleans, a high-pitched, metal-on-metal, I'm about to die cry. I started thinking about triple-A on Route 6 and rental cars on holiday weekends. Low mileage trannys in unfamiliar junkyards. Greasy interludes.

We were cheered a bit when one of our friends had a dead battery in a borrowed SAAB, and we jumped him with the Owl. Maybe we could pass the karma on to him via jumper cables. And maybe we did, because Monday morning Red fluffed his wings and beat the air all the way home without a squeal.

Still, we'd been warned. It's getting time to think about our automotive future. Junk trannys, new junkers, or another adventure in new low-end hardware? Which opens a philosophical can of worms, and forces us to confront the Great American Hypocrisy.

How do you maintain your independently mobile birthright and keep your ecological hands clean? You don't, of course.

Right now we are so self-righteous we fairly glow. The Owl can get 50 mpg on the backroads, and is the only bird in the driveway. Peggy goes off to Freeport in the AM, and I strut about Bowdoinham shanksmare, looking down my nose at dooryards full of gashogs. Our monautomotive purity was the result of religious meditation, of course.

Actually, it was because I made a stupid call on a car deal. Two years ago the $300 station wagon I'd driven for 3 years finally collapsed at the shock mounts. Another slant-6 Chrysler belly-flopped out of our life. A local mechanic & son I'd depended on since arriving in town also ran a secondhand sideline, and they offered me a prize vehicle to replace The Limo. A blue Eagle they'd just put a new engine in, and could offer to me for a mere $1300.

I figured the blue monster was only worth $800, despite it's charm.. a backseat already dogripped and scented, a solid trailer hitch, and new tires. My buddy the car dealer said he'd personally guarantee to fix anything that I found wrong with the car in the first month I owned it, at his expense. Sounded like a deal. These guys had always treated me right. It was December, and I was flush with my seasonal cash-bulge.. o what the hell, there it was.

I tend to bat about 500 in the second-hand department. I've bought junkers that run for years with only the usual complaints.. or I've been taken to the cleaners overnight. Once I bought a Chevy Luv pickup against all my better instincts. I knew them to be rust-buckets, but with a heart of gold. I'd responded to a newspaper ad asking $800 out in the jungles of Woolich. The owner was living in a camper trailer down a dirt road, and the Luv was parked over a puddle. An old trick. I wasn't to be fooled. I lay down alongside the water and took a good look at the frame. Remarkably solid. Engine sounded good, ran OK.. I was hungry for wheels, and offered him $600.

The owner wrote out a bill of sale for $600, then said, "You want to pay all that tax?"

"Probably not." And he ripped up that bill and made one out for $1 and a consideration. Pretty slick, I thought. Anything to get one over on Augusta (car excise is a killer in Maine).

That Luv stared acting up before I got to Richmond. Gears jamming, clutch funny. But I figured I could live with a few quirks. When I got to Bowdoinham, I immediately had Frizzle put it up on the lift to give me an inspection, and he hooted with laughter. That old fox had pieced out the rusted frame with wood, and painted it to look like good metal. I'd bough a useless hunk of junk. I bellowed my plight to a couple of large local boys, and they offered to accompany me back to Woolich for retribution.

When we got to the scene of the crime, that camper was gone.. along with my $600. The piece of paper said I'd paid a dollar. That time I walked for 5 months before I scraped up enough cash to indulge in wheels again.

We're talking about Bryce's personal vehicle, you understand. Peggy has to have a commuter vehicle to make her daily trek, but country life without a personal vehicle is awkward even for a home worker. As soon as I could get into a junker I was back guzzling the octanes. One old gas hog lead to another until the Limo collapsed, and I invested in an Eagle.

That blue Eagle blew oil every time I started it up, and spent weeks at a time in the shop being muttered over. Actually it sat in the mechanic's yard, because, unknown to me, the father and son team were selling the business to their top mechanic, and he hadn't made any promises to me. Finally, in mid-January they said it was cured, and I set out for Portland in excitement. Halfway there the blue bird threw a rod, and I called the mechanic to come tow me home.

"I'd like my money back," I said. Six months later I was still waiting to see greenbacks. By that time I was getting used to walking. Whenever I wanted to go to town (Brunswick), I'd start down the local byway, and someone would pick me up within a couple hundred yards. Nice to know everyone in the village . Of course I'd badmouth my car dealer to all and sundry, and he'd look the other way when he passed me. The blown Eagle was crushed for scrap. Maybe I still have title.

Your life changes when you walk in the country. You trade mobility for local conviviality. I got to spend time with whomever picked me up.. and the other pedestrians in town.. but I couldn't do my old daily rounds. My wider subsistence network dissolved. Part of the alternate economy depends on maintaining network connections. Being there when deals go down, smoozing around regularly, touching base. With your face-to-facing range restricted to a couple of miles, it's hard to be there when it happens.

At first some of the boys would stop in and take me along on town runs and the like, but I had no way to reciprocate. Doing favors is a bore when it's a oneway street. Phone smoozing is a lady's game in a small town, and I'd given up going to the wateringhole for Happy Hour. My shop has never been one of the local meeting places, thank god, so I was out of the loop. Just out of it.

The casual rounds of workshops, which provided me sources for materials, stopped. I didn't have a truck or trailer puller to get manure, hay, loam, firewood, bulky materials.. haul the boat. Brent, in particular, watched out for me, and helped with such tasks, but I got so I didn't want to ask. I was a pain in the ass even to myself.

But there were tradeoffs. I walked a lot more, and the dog's loved it. The local grocery, restaurant, landing, and post office are within ramble of home. I discovered that most of my running around was unnecessary, self-justifying. I could save up all the "town" errands and take Peggy to work one day a week, take the car, do everything on my list, and be done with it. My lists got smaller and smaller as my ability to indulge them disappeared. If I needed a part, or a plank, either I'd have to wait, or figure out how to do without. I discovered that most of the chores we "have to do" can be done without. Automobility was just another habitual indulgence I could taper off.

Without my own wheels I got less cranked up by rushing to do, which usually means rushing to spend. I saved a lot more than the extra insurance, gas, etc. Life became more coherent, slower. And I could be quietly superior to all you petrolites.

Of course I'd flip on those occasions when I couldn't stand it a minute longer, or there was a key ingredient in what I was doing that I couldn't lay hands on. To know that something crucial was only a 20 minute drive away was tantalizing.

My face-to-face market evaporated, too. A lot of my commissions result from happenstance personal contacts, and they didn't hap. You have to be where the patrons are. So cashflow went into a tailspin, too. I needed less, and I had less chance to get any. I took to rambling the back acreage. The dogs got sleek and frisky.

When the chance to travel America came along, I was already sufficiently disconnected from the striving life that I could pack it into the Owl, and not worry about dollars and cents. I'd already stepped off the high road. It only seemed strange to spend all day driving.

Back in Bowdoinham, and the school year, I returned to a pedestrian life. I still miss seeing some folks in my wider net, but I've been amazed at the depth of distraction within a stroll of home. Doing these daily drawings around town opened my eyes wider and wider. There's something to be said for examining every worm in the can.

When I take the car for more than one day at a time I get rushy, I feel that quickening that feeds the American frenzy. Start driving with tunnel vision. The lists get longer. I start waving the plastic. It makes me queasy, and I have to walk around for a couple of days to cool off.

But now we are approaching new wheels time, or so the Owl cries. Sooner or later we have to face up to the demise of the Owl. We can decide on another vehicle now, and use Red as the beater in the dooryard, the lawn ornament to be, or wait until he screeches to a halt.

It's falling apart time in northern New England. The weirdness crawls out of the woods between the equinox and Halloween.. and tinkers with the technology. Colder nights and the Celtic Twilight conspire to muddle the machinery. Cars won't start. Tools act up. Seers make stupid prophecies.

I took the Owl one Wednesday, to visit my jovial periodontist, go to the library, etc.. and decided to experiment with the screaming bird while I waited for Peggy after school. I had a new fanbelt, and thought I might's well try that before I moaned over the tranny. I was already down in the mouth, so a touch of mechanic's angst couldn't hurt worse.

Loosening the alternator proved harder than I'd expected, but it is October, so I hung the new belt and levered it up snug. When I gave the adjuster bolt one last tweak it snapped off clean. All I could do was laugh. I clamped the alternator in place with vice-grips, and mused all the way home. The Owl squawled periodically. All I'd done was create another problem.

While we were away Frizzle sold the gas station to a couple of Hungarian immigrants, George and Irene, who have proven to be the smalltown mechanics you dream of. When I replaced the dead fan in the Owl after we came back, George refused to let me pay the $500 for a new dealer fan, or the $300 quoted for an aftermarket. He hunted all over for a junk fan, without luck, then welded my old bracket on a Honda fan he had out back and charged me $50. When I did a toonscape of their garage George and Irene insisted on buying a copy. My first sale.

I had an order in with George for front tires, and when I went to have them mounted, he asked how the Owl was. I told him about the screaming, and pointed at my vicegrips, still firmly advertising my acumen. He said, "Let me take a look."

So George taps out the broken bolt, and readjusts the belt. He says the hanger bolt on the alternator was so tight he couldn't adjust the belt all the way. Now it adjusts, and guess what. No more screaming in the morning.

So the Owl gets a reprise, and I don't have to worry about my environmentalist purity, yet. I'm still walking, and muttering to myself. The dogs are happy. But it's early in the strange season.