Our car needed an oil-change so I headed to the place in Montville off Route 32 where I have it changed every three thousand miles. Yeah, I've read all the car-care columns on the new and longer oil-change increments and that's well and good but many years ago my friend and neighbor, Eric, who knows more about cars sound asleep than you and I will ever know wide awake told me to get the oil changed every three thousand miles and that's what I do. And it works like a charm.
There were four or five people getting routine maintenance accomplished and I joined them while the oil was changed. One of the fellows who changes the oil came into the waiting area with the filthiest air filter I have ever seen, from a Chrysler Pacifica (he said) and spoke with the guy who drives the vehicle (who looked to be about my age, but with pointed (and muddy) cowboy boots and a trucker type ball cap) to confer.
The vehicle, said the guy, needed a new air filter and, opening his left hand, he showed the owner the oil drain plug that had been in his vehicle and that was pretty much worn down. The employee suggested the driver buy a new plug for four dollars since the old one was cross-threaded. A new air filter was nineteen dollars and some change, plus tax.I could see from where I was sitting, the owner had zero desire to do this and sure enough, he looked at the employee and told him "that's okay, I'll take care of it all later."
All of us, to include the kid holding the air filter containing the sands of the Sahara, knew this guy was full of carp (I hate typing 'crap') and he went back in to change the car's oil while I returned to reading one of the newspapers lying about, with a story on an inside page about the "new, affordable" health care plans that masquerade as saving Americans money but will in reality (and by design) damage/destroy and weaken choices available with the Affordable Care Act.
I've never really understood why we think the right to die from an illness or injury we cannot afford to treat or cure is in the Constitution or why insisting everyone have universal health care is some kind of socialism that leads to communism. I lived in my wife's country, Germany, which has universal healthcare and from what I've experienced, her countrymen are in considerably better shape physically than mine because the system works.
There are, I'm sure, probably a lot of reasons for that, but being able to afford and finance preventive care (like getting a new air filter for your car) is, I suspect, no small part of the equation. And more significantly, to me, might be projecting what NOT having preventive care costs us as a society.
I took another look at the Pacifica, still on the rack as I drove away, realizing the next time I see it, it'll probably be by the side of the road with the hood up and the emergency flashers on. I'm sure the repair bill total on that day will be considerably higher than what it might have been yesterday, but the owner did get to exercise free choice as a God-loving and socialist-fearing American, and that, I'm sure, will be very comforting when the wheels stop turning, assuming they don't just fall off.
-bill kenny
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