Blue Moon

A blue moon is coming this week.  People are talking about it.  When I think about the blue moon, I think about this run down drinking establishment near Pleasant Lake outside of Saint Cloud.  For a month one summer I lived out there with some friends.  I also visited quite a bit and we would stop at the Blue Moon when we got off work at 11 p.m.  One very cold winter night I was driving my friend home from work.  The weather was so cold and the heater in my Rambler was so bad we had to scrape the ice off the windshield on the inside as I drove. She scraped an opening for me to see while I drove. I got a flat tire.  I had lots of flat tires in those days because I never bought new tires.  I bought retreads.  I believe retreads were old tires with the tread cut deeper a second time so they wouldn't be bald tires. We stopped at Simonson's gas station on Division Street to put on the spare.  My fingers got so cold I had to take breaks inside the gas station to warm up.  I was dressed in my white nurses aid uniform and a winter coat. I was an experienced tire changer.  With the spare tire on we drove to the Blue Moon for a nightcap.  When we came out of the Blue Moon another tire was flat.  Since my spare was already on the car we were up a creek.  We called another friend for a ride home.  I took one flat tire with me.  By the time I had two new retreads ready to put on two days had passed.  Also a blizzard had come by.  I asked my friend for a ride to the Blue Moon.  When we got there my car was invisible under the drifts of snow.  My friend said emphatically, "I am not helping you change that tire until you make sure that car starts.  It won't start."  Normally she is an easy going person but not this time.  She went inside the Blue Moon.  I angrily got a shovel and started digging. The sun was up but the air was cold. I dug my way to the driver's door.  I dug a path to the exhaust and to the flat tire.  I left the rest of the car buried in the snow. Maybe even I had doubts about the starting power of this car.  I got inside my car.  I sat in the driver's seat.  I put the key in the ignition. I patted the dashboard and politely asked it to start.  I pumped the gas pedal three times.  That is what we did in those days.  We pumped the gas pedal before starting the car.  Each car was different as far as how many pumps it needed.  This orange Rambler needed three.  I looked ahead at the windshield covered with snow.  I thought about my friend inside the Blue Moon thinking this car would not start.  I turned the key.  Despite the fact that the car sat alone and lonely in the Blue Moon parking lot for two days during a blizzard, despite the fact that it was -20 degrees Fahrenheit, despite the fact it had a flat tire, the engine purred to life like it was 60 degrees and sunny outside.  Even I was surprised how eager this car was to start.  How do I describe my happiness at hearing that car engine running? I don't have the words to describe it.  I swaggered into the Blue Moon.  I sat next to my friend who was drinking a beer. I said, "My.  Car.  Started."  She looked at me in disbelief.  She opened the door to the Blue Moon and saw for herself it was true.  Without a word she put on her coat, grabbed a shovel, and helped me dig out and change that tire.  That car had problems.  The floor was rusted through so I could see the road below.  The trunk was rusted I sometimes lost papers and other thin items as they fell out.  The carburetor was such a problem one repair shop told me to never come back with that car again.  I took that personally.  What a mean thing for a auto repair person to say!  I kept a spoon on the dashboard to start it sometimes because once my friends saw fire on their fingers they didn't want to hold the butterfly choke open manually anymore.  And this car had lots of flat tires.  But my car started at the Blue Moon so that made it an awesome car.  The Blue Moon, for me, is a memory of epic redemption and pure happiness.