“You’ve gotta laugh about it, right??”

It has been a full week back at the desert ranch here at KA—a seven-day work week indeed getting to know the new faculty, working on our upcoming student orientation, mentoring the brand-new teachers, and preparing for the new courses. I landed last Saturday evening about 8:00 p.m. following my day of flights from Cincinnati to Paris and Paris to Amman, and in the morning at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday it was the beginning of the new work year. You will hear all about the new faculty and new work in due time, and it has been an exciting week, but one event of the week really overshadowed everything else—the word came to me that I was getting a car.

I know this sounds like a re-tread of a blog entry from last August and September—remember that excitement, the promise of the car, the naming of the car as the ancient goddess, ‘Ishtar,’ and the arrival of my father coinciding with the arrival of Ishtar—it was heady stuff, and reminiscent of turning 16 and hearing you might get a car of your own to drive.

Not to spend too much time on the ancient history of the fall of 2008, but if you do not remember how that narrative played out, someone wrecked my car in the third week of my transformative experience of having a car, and that was the end of that. It was never replaced last year.

When I arrived back on campus last weekend several friends had heard the buzz that I was on the shortlist for a car…maybe, really, of course, it could happen.

So on Monday I was told, “John, anytime you like, pass by and we will work out the details for getting the car.” I was there within the hour with my passport, driver’s license, residency card, worker’s permit and the $175 necessary to procure a driver’s license. I was ready. I didn’t want that moment to pass!

Into Rita’s office I ambled—one part deferential so that she sees I understand her power as the “car bestower” and part ecstatic that I can be able to drive hither and yon upon my whims (at my whims?). I sign the documents and then we walk outside so she can show me the car parked in front of the administration building. There it is! A silver metaphor of freedom! Rita shows me the car, and tosses me the keys.

Well, in the rush to get the work accomplished for new faculty orientation, I don’t even get inside the car then or during the next day. I couldn’t believe two days had gone by without a single celebratory jaunt somewhere, but as always, the days fly by in trying to re-establish a household, meet and greet, and plan and plan. On Wednesday night I told Julianne I wanted to drive her around Madaba and show her the sights of her new environs.

Okay, I must digress for a moment—Julianne is one of the new Hackley tribe that has invaded KA. Three full-time Hackley faculty have made the move this week, and another retired Hackley guru is coming for part-time work in college counseling this September. By the end of the year we hope to outnumber the dons from Deerfield who have monopolized the KA faculty since the dawn of our time. Julianne recently made a point that she had never merited a mention in my blog—she has been a faithful reader of the blog, and she said her mother has certainly noted that she, Julianne, had never even had a shout-out. What a pity. I believe that will change—well, it did just change, since she got her own paragraph. But I mean, I am quite sure you will read more about Julianne since she has taken on the major role at the school as Dean of Student Life. There are few jobs more all-encompassing, more omni-everything than that job. She oversees the sports programs, dances, rules against gum-chewing, and rebelliously untucked shirts, clocks in the dorms, to health classes, to weekend activities to Orientation, to advisors—the sweep is breathtaking, and if you know Julianne, you know she is excited for this task, and up to this challenge. She is a worker and a thinker and is thoroughly in love with school life. She is a wildly successful coach with an armload of state championships to her credit, and I am sure she will treat us all as members of her work-in-progress team.

Anyhoo, there is at least now a substantial paragraph on Julianne, and more to come…

So I decide Julianne needs to go and visit Chili Ways in Madaba, the greasy spoon whose success should be more than partly laid at the feet of the boy boarders at KA. Many of our boys love the delivery service of Chili Ways, and I am sure the owners are checking into summer homes to buy due to the funding from these boy boarders. Few top-dogs at KA have ever been to Chili Ways, and some persist in calling it vile, which might actually spur our teenage boys into ordering more and more from this font of grease and carbohydrates. I mentioned to Jules that it would give her some “street cred” if she could causally mention that she had dined at Chili Ways. Besides, I liked it and wanted some cheese conies to remind me of the Cincinnati Chili that is mother’s milk to west-siders in my hometown!

So I plan to take Jules in my new car, and head over for sunset at Mt. Nebo, and tool around Madaba a bit and indulge at Chili Ways.

We get in the car, and I decide I should make my father proud, and look at the manual for the car first. We notice something strange about the gear shift too. It doesn’t have the conventional PRNDL, but instead has four directions, like the four corners of the world, marked as +, -, A, and R. Okay, no problem, we will look in the manual for the explanation…we look, and discover that this particular manual in our glove compartment is not for this car. It explains the gear shift for PRNDL for some other model of the car. Okay, no matter, let’s just start the car and see whether we go forward or backward! Come on, between us, we have been driving for nearly 50 years!

As I put the key in the ignition a helpful graphic pops up over the radio announcing how much gas is left. It reads: “Range: O Kilometers.” That sounds strange—does that really mean there is no gas at all? The gas gauge is either extraordinarily lazy or insolent, or truthfully registering no gas. No gas? The range is 0 kilometers? It is at least 5 kilometers to a gas station…and actually, 0 is rather strange. Zero kilometers? Maybe it is meant to just scare you into going and getting gas—NOW!

So I turn the key to start the motor just to get a feel for my new car. There is a big nothing that happens…not a whisper or whimper of energy from this car. For a moment I think of calling my father (after all, that is my impulse and he has saved me from car problems for the last 28 years anyway—his words have always been, “All right, I’ll be there in a little bit.”) but Jules and I are incredulous.

We race through the manual for this other make of the car, we look at the gas gauge, we wonder how the car got to campus with no gas—and Julianne turns and smiles, and says, “You’ve gotta laugh about it, right??” She knows my history with cars and freedom at KA, and here we are—right on the cusp of freedom with this car, and it won’t start. Ha!

Julianne is not to be deterred, and called the duty driver and asked one of the men to drive us to Chili Ways—this is one of the perks of knowing the Dean of Student Life, since this request would not be considered by regular faculty.

We ended up having the Chili Ways that night, and the driver waited for us outside in the school van, eager to take us back to campus.

The following day I go visit Rita, gently inquiring why the car had no gas, how it starts, why the manual is different, when I might be able to take a spin in my new escape hatch.

A couple of hours later I went back to Rita’s office—she said the car is much like her car, part automatic and part manual. She walked me out and showed me how to start the car. The key is, as Rita explained, you put your foot on the brake.

Huh?

She quickly explained how the gears worked—I hope I remember—and that the car starts when the brake is pressed. Okay, I am not a car guy, but I don’t see the logic there. She also showed me in the manual how the gears worked. She had to show me in the Arabic manual, since the one in English was not the correct manual for that car! She offered for someone to go and get gas for me too so I could relieve myself of that worry…

So, yes, as Julianne suggested, you just have to laugh. And you have to have patience and forbearance. This too shall pass, this mini-crisis might end up just a cute story on the blog and not a permanent side-lining like the car was last year.

I have not had the opportunity to try the car out yet—I wanted a little mystery and suspense to the end of this entry, you know, to coax you to wonder how the first trip will go. In just a few minutes I plan take out some new faculty and help them get groceries.

Press the brake, start the car, and put the car into A—and it should GO.

Let’s have a laugh and see how it goes!