Rabbit Fun

This was originally published about a year and a half ago but I noticed on the list of posts it and the next one indicated DRAFT in red. I thought I would edit it and "publish" it which I had apparently not done. Well, it makes it today's date when you do that. So, this post, the last one, and the next one were all made over a year ago. Mark Collins (last paragraph) is no longer the fire chief in Snohomish and has enjoyed retirement for over a year.

When Brett was a baby in 1980, we bought the only new car Pat and I ever had together (except now we have a 2012 Buick which was almost new -3,500 miles- when the kids gave it to us two Decembers ago). It was a yellow 1980 Volkswagen diesel Rabbit. We drove it for almost three years, and just before it was paid off it burned up. We had had three days of zero degree F. weather and diesels are very hard to start when it is that cold. I had a very bright idea of putting a space heater under the hood to keep the engine compartment warm. I pulled it up against the house just under the kid's bedroom so it would be close to the power cord from the basement. It was maybe ten pm and there was a pounding on the front door. Two very excited teen boys were yelling that my car was on fire. "We're not lying," they tried to convince me. I believed them. I knew that I had just put high heat very near the fuel line. I was able to get to the brake and shifter, and the boys helped me push the car away from the house.

The fireman knew me when the truck arrived, and they readily put out the flames which had been mostly limited to the engine compartment. The fireman it turned out was Mark Collins who I knew from Snohomish Ward. There was no way of telling from all the fire gear and helmet he was wearing. Mark is now the fire chief - probably from all the heroism he provided me and from other such incidents, I'm sure.