University of North Carolina Athletics
Mick: The Pencil
June 12, 2003 | General
June 12, 2003
Tar Heel Monthly is the premier magazine devoted to the stories and personalities behind UNC athletics. Click here for subscription information.
The following is a story from the most recent issue of the magazine.
By Mick Mixon
"There you are, son. Fuel pump for a '63 Nova. That'll be ten dollars," said the man behind the counter, putting a small, cardboard box on the counter in front of me with a loud clunk. Motor Bearings and Parts in the Eastgate Shopping Center was where my dad bought his stuff, so I was there, too.
I opened the box and inspected the part like I had handled quite a few of these in my 17 years on the planet, even though it didn't look like anything I had ever seen before. "Great. That 'ought to do me." I said. I paid my money and headed home to install it.
After a few tries I finally got my beaten up old red two-door pulled onto the ramps. I gathered some tools together and slid underneath the car to begin looking for something that resembled the auto part I had in the box. Ah! There it was! The old fuel pump, bolted right onto the side of the engine block! Shoot, I'd have this chore done in no time. I'd get to the bolts in a minute, but first I had to remove the pump's two hoses. Just as I was about to attack hose clamp number one, I became aware that somebody was watching me.
Someone was. Looking down at me through the engine compartment was my dad.
My father was a large man, about 6' 3 and over 220 pounds, and he wasn't much of a sports fan even though he had been on the swim team while studying chemistry at NC State. An engineer and a confirmed do-it-yourselfer, he was hoping for a quiet, serious, Chester Peabody, slide rule type son. Instead he got the opposite and I think he secretly blamed my mother, an artist, for the genes that steered me away from math and science and towards english and athletics.
My dad was also a decorated minimalist. Most of my friend's fathers had fairly high lecture quotients. The mention of almost any topic was enough to send them sailing off into a detailed speech liberally sprinkled with their own personal war stories of how they overcame innumerable obstacles to accomplish some great deed. My dad was not like that. He preferred fewer but more powerful words, and he did not believe in over-parenting my sister and me.
So here he was on the Saturday afternoon I am telling you about, staring down at me but not saying anything.
"What?" I finally asked, an exasperated tone in my voice.
Still he didn't speak. Instead, he handed me a yellow pencil.
"A pencil? What do I need this for, Dad?"
"Oh, just keep it down there with you. You might find a use for it." he said. And then he went back inside.
"Oh brother!" I thought to myself. "Why me? Why do I have to have such a nutty dad? What does he think I'm gonna do, take notes on this project? Here I am, lying on my back under this car trying to put a fuel pump on and he is handing me down a writing instrument for crissakes!!"
rimming with confidence but completely void of experience, I set the pencil aside, wrapped a pair of channel lock pliers around hose clamp number one and yanked it loose.
Immediately gasoline started pouring all over me from the hose. Aaaaak! Instinctively I reached behind me, grabbed something and shoved it into the hose, stopping the flow of gas.
I'll be damn. It was the pencil.
That pencil fit perfectly inside a 3/8th inch fuel hose, just like my dad knew it would. He knew I was working on a fuel pump, he knew I had no clue what I was doing, he knew that I wouldn't know that I'd need a hose plug, he knew gas would glug down all over me, but he made sure that the tool I'd eventually require was within reach.
And he gave me the most wonderful gift of all; by resisting the fatherly temptation to lecture me pre-fuel pump about fuel pump pitfalls, he let me experience it myself.
My father lived another 13 years after that day and neither of us ever said one single word about the pencil. I kind of wish I had. I'd like to have thanked him.
Father's Day is this month. Here's to the lessons they teach us, and the lessons they allow us to learn ourselves!
You can contact Mick at mmixon@tarheelsports.com . To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly, click here.
