Ah the joyful memories of learning to drive in our 1970’s HQ Holden
family car. It all came back to me with an almost fond wistfulness yesterday. Dad’s
got a broken arm at the moment (that’s a whole other story) and needed a hand
to get a load of firewood. The day
before, he’d rung up and asked if I could help him. At the precise moment he rang,
I’d just ducked outside for the minimum extent possible to get some herbs for
lunch, giving me enough time to note that it was a balmy four degrees and that my
fingers had snap-frozen into a claw shape. It had been raining all morning, not
a lovely autumnal shower that gently mists the face, but a must-get-rid-of-as-much-H2O-as-possible
-within-a-24-hour-period bucketing. The sky was a charcoal grey verging on
thick black evil colour. Dad had decided this was perfect wood-gathering conditions:
a good opportunity to improve muscles by lifting wood made heavy and slimy from
being soaked with water, and build stamina by working outside when core body
temperature is below the hypothermia trigger point. After discussing weather
conditions, my somewhat negative reaction was enough to put the trip off until
yesterday instead. So, on a much nicer day when actual blue sky was
evident, we went and got the load of wood. Dad reluctantly relinquished the
driver’s seat of his beloved Prado. The trip to go and get the wood was uneventful,
with only small and completely necessary instructions issued at increments from
Dad as I drove him there and back, e.g. pointing out the 40 school zone,
telling me when to take off at a green light etcetera, etcetera. Once we’d got
back we unloaded the wood, and it was then that the real work commenced:
putting the trailer back in the shed. There were three vehicles and a trailer
to be rearranged, including the old HQ which was hulking seemingly innocently
in the shed. After rusting away nicely for years, sitting unmolested in the
backyard as it undertook its well-deserved retirement, the HQ was abruptly
moved from the backyard into the shed as Dad had decided to do some work on it
and return it to its glory days. It now needed to be moved out of the way so we
could get the trailer in the shed. After a few slight misinterpretations of the
overall aims of the Vehicle Manoeuvre Procedure (VMP), I came to the
understanding that the Holden needed to be moved from the left side of the shed,
point A, to the front of the house, point B, then the HQ needed to be moved
from the right side of the shed, point C, to the neighbour’s driveway, point D,
then the Prado and trailer moved from beside the house, point E, to the shed,
point C, so that the trailer could be unhooked and moved to its spot at the
back of the shed, point F, then the Prado moved out of the way to the front of
the house, point G, then the HQ moved back to the shed, point C, then the Prado
moved in to the shed next to the HQ, point A, then the Holden moved to the side
of the house, point E. Or something like
that. The VMP also had to take into
account that spaces out the front were limited as my Laser was parked on the
nature strip, and the council had the stormwater drain dug up so we couldn’t
park anything directly in front of the house. Anyway, Dad had it all worked out
and would feed me the minimum necessary VMP information as required. So, we
commenced step 1. I backed the Holden out of the garage, and decided to input
some creative inspiration by parking it at Point H, up the road, instead of
point B out the front. After this small deviation and a brief talking to from
Dad I returned to following correct procedure, as the moment had come to move
the HQ. With his broken arm Dad couldn’t turn the steering wheel of the HQ, so
it was ALL UP TO ME to back it out of the shed. The mechanical marvel that is
the HQ, manufactured purely for the ease of the driver, has a 20 tonne weight, is 10
m wide, and has a turning circle of about 300 metres. I got in the driver’s
seat and suddenly the wonderful HQ memories all came back to me. The
vinyl seats, ideal for a long trip on a hot summers day. The window winder
requiring two hands to wind the window up or down, which I noted now had the
extra benefit of having the top of the handle broken off. The handbrake, the
gears, the steering wheel: all perfectly formulated for operation by a 7 foot tall
bloke blessed with many muscles. I wound down the window so Dad could begin issuing
instructions in his usual calm manner. Oh
the joy of backing the HQ out of the shed with Dad watching on. I could see the
first tense signs of frustration as he watched me attempting to drive the car,
while being unable to leap over, kick me out of the driver’s seat, and do it
himself. Trying to turn the car to the
left, I used all of my strength and leaned sideways to pull on the wheel, which
had the effect of doing absolutely nothing to the car, while carefully listening
to Dad telling me to turn the car, turn it sharply. Yes Dad, no problems. After
a 50 point turn and some exceptionally talented backwards and forwards-ing I
finally got the car out of the shed and down the bottom of the hill, and parked
temporarily in the next door neighbours drive. We then had to move the two
other cars. I said to Dad I would back the Prado with the trailer down the
hill. Dad gave me a look. Apparently what looked pretty straight forward to me,
just putting the car in reverse, holding the steering wheel straight, and reversing
down the straight drive, is actually a tad harder than that. So Dad did that
one. Meanwhile Murphy’s law dictated that the neighbour had come home right in
the middle of proceedings and had to park on the street, so there were now five
cars and a trailer involved in the VMP. Dad pulled the Prado and trailer into
the shed, then we unhooked the trailer from the Prado and I followed more
instructions on the Correct Way To Do Things and learnt how to locate the
trailer with pinpoint accuracy so as to be 1 mm not 1.5 mm from the back shed
wall. I then had to get the HQ out of
the next door neighbour’s driveway and into the shed. I backed out of the
neighbour’s drive, and got out onto the road. I then pulled forward into Dad’s
driveway, but not having driven the HQ for 15 years and being a little out of
practice, I didn’t quite have enough revs going to get fully into the driveway
and off the road. Dad yelled out “Don’t stall it”. The car stalled. While I
restarted the car and got it moving and off the road, Dad paced up and down a
bit to abate his moderate heart attack as he imagined a brand new Porsche or
top of the line BMW coming round the corner and hitting the HQ, which was
unregistered. I got the car to the top of the hill, then stalled it again. I
then had to do a handbrake start, simultaneously pulling the handbrake with two
hands and getting the car into gear and moving so I wouldn’t slide down the
hill and have to start the whole process again, perhaps taking out a letterbox
and the neighbour’s wall at the same time. Having taken a liking to the
stalling and handbrake start option, I did this three or four more times for
practice before finally getting the HQ into the shed. I then moved the Holden
up to the side of the house, while Dad moved the Prado in to the shed beside
the HQ. Operation VMP was over. In total it took one hour to move three cars
and a trailer. It’s only 26 more days until Dad’s arm is fixed. Hope there’s
enough firewood to last that long.
