I come from a place with probably more rust-bucket jalopies than any other city on Earth. At least, that’s what I used to think.

Like here, my hometown is a waterfront city with sorry median incomes for average working folks. Many people tend do whatever they can to keep their cars going long after the payments to the local credit union are complete (Myself included).

So, I can relate a bit to the transient surfers who pass along cars to their buddies before they return to their lives on the mainland. I grew up around reincarnated cars, although I don‘t profess to know much of anything about them myself. But I can do little body work, thanks to my dad.

As I started driving around Maui, one of the things that immediately caught my attention (aside from getting mugged by the gas pump or all the burned-out abandoned vehicles), was the number of crumpled bumpers and side-panel scrapes on cars and trucks. It’s an epidemic here.

At first, I thought it was simply the result of just too many rear-end collisions due to tourists trying to drive like it’s the mainland on the island’s twisting roads or in its surprising rush-hour gridlock. Then, I asked a colleague about it, and she had a very logical explanation.

She said that the cost of living here is so high that people probably can’t afford to pay the deductible to get their car professionally repaired.

When I was a kid, my dad earned the cash for our Christmas presents and vacations servicing these ‘tweeners.

When he was a teenager, a friendly elderly neighbor taught him how to do body work. Later in life, my dad and his gear-head buddies mostly bought and sold cars, trading mechanical skills. Dell did engines, Steve could weld, etc…

On my dad’s days off from his job at the paper mill or trucking company, he fixed up dents and dings, cleaned and repainted cars for hours in his garage, which he had stocked with mostly second-hand tools and an industrial-sized air compressor. I know the old horse trader got yet another great deal on that one, which still works.

I remember him coming in for dinner and the TV news with permanent grime under his finger nails and a dust outline where the respirator covered his face.

I spent much of my childhood that garage, too, (Although not enough. There’s never enough time with your pop, is there?). Occasionally, I crawled under the cars to get to a rusted bolt that a grown man couldn’t reach or I’d gofer the right sized socket. But mostly I was supposed to stay quiet and out of the way of the men. It used to bug me, but not anymore. I did ask a lot of questions.

My dad did it all to make a couple hundred bucks here and there (I think a whole body and paint job went for $300). A fair price and good finished product was important to him, and besides, a bad reputation spreads quicker than frost in a town the size of Duluth, Minnesota.

He also fielded countless phone calls by persnickety potential buyers who inspected trunks like they were fine diamonds; rarely showed up on time if at all; complained to no end about the ubiquitous broken tape decks; haggled as though buying that ‘81 Mustang was a life-or-death deal for the last hunk of bread in The Great Depression; and then tried to pay by second-party personal check.

So, thanks for the Huffy and trip to Disneyworld, dad. Thanks also for never putting a couch or beer fridge in the garage and always making it inside for dinner.

And I hope some of you folks with salt-damaged hoods on Maui are lucky enough to know a guy like John Hamilton.