Mac was a business man almost his entire life. He got started before he ever knew how to drive. He wasn’t even a teenager yet when he accepted the opportunity to work around cars at the service station just down the street in Sioux City, Iowa. He loved cars. He grew up in the exciting era of the automobile. Every year new models graced the emerging, growing auto showrooms. Albion loved to wander in, saunter around, and wonder if he would ever own one of those shiny, exciting, powerful machines.
His first day on the job at the service station, the owner said, “OK kid, bring that 32 Chevy around and pull her onto the rack.”
He was excited and terrified at the same time. He was being trusted to drive a car. WOW! He had never driven before. He walked over to the nearly new black beauty, opened the door, and slid behind the giant steering wheel. His fear disappeared in a matter of seconds.
He knew he knew what to do.
His favorite time in the whole wide world was to go for a ride with his father when he got to sit in the front seat. He watched everything his dad did. He memorized it. Now, all he had to do was to duplicate it.
He put his left foot on the clutch pedal. He could barely reach to push it all the way down to the floor board. He turned the key to the “on” position, pulled out the choke a little bit, stepped lightly on the accelerator with his right foot and pushed on the starter button. The engine coughed, fired, sputtered and began to purr. He was grinning on the inside and just sat there satisfied with his success.
He kept the clutch pushed all the way in, palmed the ball at the top of the floor mounted gear shift and pushed it up and to the left of center. Giving the motor just a little more gas, he slowly released the clutch. Looking through the steering wheel and barely able to peer out of the bottom of the windshield, he aimed the car toward the open garage door.
What was the owner thinking to trust a kid who had never driven before, to pull an almost new car into the service station bay and onto those narrow nine-inch wide metal channels?
Albion Paris McMaster II did it!
He did it perfectly. When he got out of that car, he was different person.
He walked out of the garage that day with a feeling like he had just grown up and that he could do great things with his life.
