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Brooks Peterson
Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com
Monday, June 7, 1999
How about it? Do you have the light stuff?
A group called the Christopher Society, which as I understand it is dedicated to the propagation of good works, has as its motto a memorable line: "It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness.''
A nicely turned phrase, wouldn't you say?
Now: I wonder where these fellows stand on headlights.
Whether you be a deranged auto enthusiast like your host, or run with the common, oblivious herd, headlights are something we - all of us - must deal with sooner or later.
With headlights, as with so many other things, that old Joni Mitchell refrain applies: "You don't know what you've got till it's gone.'' (There! Got Joni Mitchell and the Christopher Society into the same column. Take that, Messrs. Will, Grady, Safire, Kaul, et al.)
You know the drill: You toddle out to your car in the evening gloom, start 'er up, and motor blithely along, until . . . until you realize that your world is a heck of a lot darker than it ought to be. Then of course you realize you're running a serious candlepower deficit - and are in immediate peril of falling into the clutches of the constabulary.
Now, I can see some of my regular readers out there cringing. I can read your lips: Uh-oh, here comes another column about crotchety old British roadsters.
That's understandable: Crotchety old British roadsters, and most other forms of British motor transport dating back to the years before Atlantis slid into the sea, are notorious for their quirky electricals. Not for nothing was Lucas, the supplier of such pieces, crowned The Prince of Darkness by a bygone generation of motorists.
Well, here's a bulletin for you, pard: We're not talking MG here. In fact, headlight replacement in my little green roadster is simplicity itself. Just take a screwdriver, pry the chrome ring away from its mounting, and pop in the fresh light. Piece of cake. OK, I did break that chrome ring once, but . . .
So we're not talking old British car. Rather, we're talking - what would you call it? - oh, say, middle-aged Japanese car. To be precise, my son's '91 Mitsubishi Eclipse. A worthy vehicle in virtually every respect, it revs with the smooth eagerness that is the trademark of Mitsu fours; it handles briskly; the A/C works; and (sob) I suspect it would suck the doors right off my MG, should it come to that.
But nobody's perfect, right? The little white coupe, a first-generation Eclipse, is afflicted with pop-up headlights. My not so cordial loathing for these devices is a matter of record. When deployed, they mess up your aerodynamics; they give your car the aspect of a dyspeptic bullfrog; and occasionally one of 'em will stick in the Up position, making it look as though your car is winking at the passersby.
In the case at hand, however, we were not concerned with aesthetics - just with replacing a headlight. How complicated could that be? (Hollow laughter offstage.)
Well. After I returned the first light I bought (naively, I had assumed that one rectangular headlight was pretty much like any other rectangular headlight), I popped the lamps up and gave them the old beady eye: Hmm. That's a headlight, all right. And it's surrounded by not one but two big ol' pieces of black plastic shrouding. A Phillips screwdriver and a certain amount of grunting had them off in a trice.
And then it got interesting. Transpires the headlight is held in place by a little rectangular (what else?) metal frame . . . and the metal frame is secured by four Phillips screws . . . one of which turns out to be frozen in place by almost a decade's worth of rust and grime . . . and two others of which are simply out of reach of any screwdriver known to man - or, at any rate, this man.
Of the other two screws (the ones in reach), one came out easily enough, but the other one - the frozen one - responded neither to brute force nor colorful language. Only after being bathed in Liquid Wrench (don't leave home without it!) did it yield.
That left the two other screws - the inaccessible ones, at the bottom - to be mastered. Did I have the Right Stuff? You dang betcha: Without a qualm, I brutally wrenched the whole frame forward, extricated the dead bulb, dropped it on the garage floor (no bare feet in our garage for a while), rassled the new headlight into place . . . and staggered over to my MG to pat its weathered flank.
Prince of Darkness indeed.
(Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com)
Brooks Peterson
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