Industrial abundance put millions of old cars within reach of ordinary people, but machines don’t keep themselves alive. For that, civilization requires another technology altogether: people who know how to help one another.
One of my favorite places in Central Texas is the AutoZone located next to the prestigious IH 35 Northbound Access Rd., near where Cameron meets 51st St, a stone’s throw from Hill-Berts.
The parking lot is disgusting, it looks like 100,000 cars have been repaired there, which is apt because at least 100,000 cars have indeed been repaired there, at least.
The vibe is amazing. People with their hoods up and their doors open, helping each other in the brutal and ghastly Texas sun.
This video is actually from the Autozone down on Riverside (on the south side of Austin), but it’s the same general vibe:
It’s Sunday and there’s three families gathered beneath the shade of an open hood on some 25 year-old piece of shit, and they’re drinking cokes and they’re showing photos of their kids as they ruminate on how to fix the old minivan that’s leaking oil in the AutoZone parking lot.
Angels are among us, and the Garden of Eden exists everywhere we look, and in the least likeliest places, provided we have the eyes to see it.
Far as I can reckon, these parking lot auto repair clinics exist in every American city, and it’s one of the best places to learn about where to find an unforgettable roadside taco from a down on his luck homeless guy who is between jobs and fresh out of a marriage.
The guy is enterprising, he’s working the parking lot for money making opportunities, shaking hands and looking people in the eye and earning trust the old-fashioned way.
They live in Houston and their daughter was attending school here in Austin and I said I would help them repair their 2013 Chevy Malibu, which proved to be a substantial piece of shit.
Which is too bad, by the way, because my very first car was a Chevy Malibu. It was an old police car I bought from a wholesaler, and I almost immediately lost my license due to an obscene quantity of moving violations. I regret nothing.
That old Malibu was bad ass - a true sleeper with that four bold main 350 and performance suspension - but the 2013?
What a terrible piece of crap; it happens.
Finally, I said: “look. Look friends I could milk you for as much money as you possess trying to keep this car on the road, but at this phase, I strongly recommend you get rid of it in favor of something that’s not a piece of crap.”
And that’s what they did, that’s what we did. We got that car fixed up just enough to sell it, and their daughter purchased a bad ass replacement that she still loves.
And that small investment in relationship earned substantial returns from people who are accustomed to being ripped off in this dog, eat dog world that’s nonetheless filthy with angels who hang out in AutoZone parking lot and in the isles of places like Home Depot.
Once you recognize their type, you see them everywhere. As Steinbeck says, go to the poor. They’re the ones who will help every single time.
And now the Pakistani girl’s dad and I exchange emails from time to time, just checking up on one another like we are a couple of old friends.
Because we are.
Two guys in their 50s who love their children enough to treat other children as if they are our own.
It survives every time somebody stops to help a stranger, teaches someone what they know, repairs something instead of throwing it away, or recognizes that a useful pair of hands might be worth more than the money in their pocket.
That’s how a 21-year-old minivan stays on the road. It’s how a 35-year-old renegade skatepark stays alive. It’s how communities endure long after the people who built them are gone.
The question isn’t whether this spirit still exists - we know it does, although the media does a great job of trying to convince us otherwise.
The question is what happens when we recognize it, and deliberately add ourselves to it.
That’s where the kindling begins.
Kindling
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Aug 16
All of the prior examples featured a brush with homelessness, demonstrating from hard and practical experience that these insights were not gained by a person within the top of the economic bracket dispensing theoretical advice untested by the crucible of lived experience.
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