Cooking with Pliers

March, 2008
all rights reserved
by
Wendy Morrow

Somewhere on the highway outside of Kitchener Ontario we pulled over to the side of the highway. It was getting close to dinner time. We were hot and tired and had been on the road most of the day, stopping here and there to look at tourist attractions and historical sites.

There were five of us, our mother and our father, my 10 year old sister and my little brother who was 9 years younger than me; he was around 4 years old at the time.

All through the long winter months Dad had planned the family holiday which was the highlight of his year. His work vacation time was 3 weeks and we took every second of those 3 weeks. Often leaving on our holiday the night before they began and coming home after midnight of the very last day.

Every winter night he poured over the road maps spread out on the kitchen table with a note pad by his side. He calculated how far we could travel in a day and what amusements we were likely to find along the route. ‘It is important to find camping spots before 4o’clock.” he would remind us, “You still have time to find a good spot and you have daylight to set up your camp.”

I don’t recall once in my childhood finding a spot before 7:00pm, long after everyone in the car had given up the will to live and were close to passing out with hunger.


Now, here we were in Ontario, far from our home in Winnipeg, pulling the home made tent trailer.
Smoke was billowing out in clouds from the engine of our old 1949 Chrysler sedan and Dad was leaning over the grill into the engine’s abyss, peering through the haze.

“Having trouble there?”

Dad jerked upright bumping his head on the inside of the car hood, when the voice behind him boomed out the question.

A tiny little man in overalls walked up to our car. My sister and I and our little brother stopped squabbling and slapping each other long enough to roll down our windows and listen.

Mom was fishing around in the trunk and looked up when the man approached.

“I used to be the Chrysler plant supervisor.” The little man told Dad. “What’cha got going on here? She hot?”

“No”, Dad started to reply. Before he could say anything further the little man pulled a rag out of his back pocket and wrapped it around the radiator cap.

“Watch out now,” he said. “The steam will burn you if she is too hot” He dug further into his pockets and came up with a pair of pliers. Clamping the pliers onto the cap he squinted, turned his face away and twisted the cap.

Small hisses of steam, then the cap came off and to the little man’s surprise no geyser of hot vapour.
“Well”, he said, scratching his chin, “There must be a leak in a hose somewhere in here.” With that he dove into the engine and squatted down among the hoses, fans and wires.

Our view of the proceedings diminished with a new puff of smoke and all we could see from our dashboard vantage point was the little man’s back as he hunched further down into the engine’s belly to find the problem.

“I don’t think you’ll find anything wrong with the car.” Dad said.

“Eh?” The little man wheezed through the smoke and looking up at my father through steamy glasses. “Sure is a puzzle though, nothing on the road, so she ain’t leaking antifreeze. “ One things’ for sure, I am getting a strong whiff of smokie wieners. Smells like a campfire.

My dad pointed to the manifold on which a large bundle of tinfoil had been carefully placed. Little droplets of meat juice were working themselves out of the foil package and dripping onto hot engine parts sending clouds of smoke and steam into the air.

My mother passed him a pair of oven mitts; Dad reached into the engine and took out the parcel. Holding it in one hand he closed the hood of the car with the other hand and placed the steamy package on top.

A cloud of delicious smelling steam and smoke erupted from the package as Dad slit it open. There inside was our dinner. Crusty and burnt but definitely hot enough to eat.

Mom passed the little man a paper plate on which she had prepared a hot dog bun, Dad ceremoniously placed the first blackened and shriveled hot dog wiener inside the bun and said to the little man.

“I bet you that Chrysler never showed you that the Imperial can also cook dinner.
The astonished little man took his plate and still looking back at us over his shoulder, got into his car and drove away.