Heavy Wash or Normal Wash?

Whenever I see anyone pulled off to the side of the road with car troubles, I feel great sympathy for them. My sister and brother and I experienced our share of automotive adventures as we grew up. Fortunately, our father contributed a wealth of knowledge concerning how to keep a car operating under tricky circumstances. He showed us how to solve car problems creatively, and this has certainly helped me out over the years.

One of these adventures always makes me laugh when I think about it, and so I'll share it with you.

In the mid-1970s, my father owned a white VW van. This was the successor to his VW Microbus, and he drove it everywhere. As it happened, one day the ignition switch quit working. Daddy couldn't get a replacement VW switch right away, and he needed to use the bus, so he jury-rigged a substitute switch. He always had parts to various machines stored in his garage. This time he dipped into his appliance parts box and retrieved part of the control system for a washing machine. Since he could fix anything, he hooked this up to the VW and solved the ignition problem.

We just had to make sure the switch was in the "heavy wash" position.

My brother and sister were driving the VW home from the Peninsula one evening in 1975. They reached Jefferson Avenue in Newport News and all was going well. Then the bus died, and they couldn't restart it. Somehow they managed to get it off the road and into a large parking lot. My brother opened the engine compartment in the rear of the bus and then scooted under the bus to check things out. My sister sat up front in the driver's seat and followed instructions. They were concentrating on the task at hand when they noticed a police car pulling up beside them. This wasn't surprising at that time, really. A VW bus, two teenagers (one a boy with long curly hair), in an empty parking lot, doing something to the car. The officer inquired whether they needed help and my brother explained that the car wouldn't start. He said they were working on the situation. The officer stood and watched. My brother called out for my sister to try and start the car. It didn't work. Then he called: "Is it on heavy wash or normal wash?" She switched it, and the car started. Hurray!

The officer, whose eyebrows I imagine had shot up off his forehead, looked at them and said, "They're not going to believe this at the station!"

With everything closed up and ready to roll again, my sister and brother headed on back to Portsmouth. Daddy installed a proper VW ignition switch soon after, but I was a bit sorry to see 'heavy wash/normal wash' go. It still makes me laugh all these years later.