The Sheet Metal Ship of Theseus

Everyone’s talking about Homer’s The Odyssey these days. Now, don’t get me wrong, Homer’s OK. If you want to get hopped up on hoplites, The Iliad‘s a great read. It’s got Achilles hectoring Hector until they go mano a mano in front of the trailer park of Troy. It used to have a hot Helen, and the original Greeks bearing gifts. Great stuff. Way to go, Homer. The Odyssey however, is plain goofy. As assigned reading, that book got thrown across the room more often than the TV guide.

If you’re in the market for Attic legends, my man Theseus was way more interesting than Odysseus. Only guy to go into the minotaur’s parking garage and come out victorious. United southern Greece under Athenian rule, and founded the cult of Aphrodite. You have to give it up for anyone who can start a cult and make it stick. I guess Waco is the exception that proves the rule.

It’s the ship of Theseus I’m especially interested in.

In Greek mythology, Theseus, the mythical king of the city of Athens, rescued the children of Athens from King Minos after slaying the Minotaur and then escaped onto a ship going to Delos. Each year, the Athenians would commemorate this by taking the craft on a pilgrimage to Delos to honour Apollo. Over time, various of its timbers rotted and were replaced. A question was raised by ancient philosophers: If no pieces of the original remained in the current ship, was it still the Ship of Theseus? If it was no longer the same, when had it ceased existing as the original ship?

I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully, natch) to convince people that a house is a ship of Theseus, lo these many years. And in my opinion, it’s a good thing it is. A house with components that “never need maintenance” is disposable, not permanent. I testify that people actually used to like caring for their homes. They used to putter around on the weekend, stripping screws, mowing their brown lawns, and wearing out the knees on their jeans. Now people’s houses are plastic, the people mostly are, too, and jeans are purchased with the knees blown out while they’re still on the rack.

It’s lonely out here in the intellectual forest, so I’m forced to quote myself on the topic:

People don’t like this idea. They want to think of their house as a permanent structure. Don’t get me wrong, they want to tinker with it. But they only want to add stuff. They just don’t ever want to maintain the place. They want to buy hot tubs and tanning beds and ceiling fans and exercise bikes and GATHER signs from the Hobby Lobby, and put them hither and yon in their house. They build rooms in the basement to do what they should be doing in the rest of the house, but you can’t watch football with a Live Laugh Love sign hanging over your couch. That’s the living room, where normal people don’t live. The neighbors would mock you.

So, what’s all this got to do with a 1973 Mercury Shitbox Montego? Everything, sorta. It illustrates the maxim, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Simon Fordman, the ingenious and dedicated fellow you see in the video fixing that car, is demonstrating a new generation’s rhyming version of my affection for the Single Family Dwelling Ship of Theseus. My example was sticks and bricks — a house. His is sheet metal and Naugahyde. Either can continue being the original, useful thing, no matter how much of it you have to swap out over the years.

Simon is not alone. Kids these days (I can’t believe I just typed that) are fascinated with old cars in the same way I’m fascinated by old houses. They love wrecks long destined for the crusher, but somehow left rusting away in a field or a barn somewhere. My own son used to look at Bring a Trailer before he was old enough to drive. They see the value in them, no matter how ugly (honestly, a Montego?) they are.

Why aren’t kids as interested in the Ship of Real Estate Theseus as I am? I’m not sure I can blame them. Maybe it’s the total takeover of every aspect of home improvement by the distaff set. Hoary old shows like This Old House used to show actual work being performed by actual men. Now construction cable shows are all girls picking out throw pillows and hanging Gather signs, occasionally pretending to operate tools, while anonymous dusky men scurry around in the background doing all the real work while trying to avoid deportation. When construction becomes Shoe Shopping at Home Depot, maybe men look elsewhere for a safe space. Old cars will fit the bill until men are driven out of that, too.

I’ve posted a handful of car restoration (resurrection, really) videos recently. I especially like the examples with no soundtrack or banter, like this Montego exorcism. It seems like just another way for a new generation to differentiate themselves from an older one, who favored Born to Be Wild background soundtracks for their car repair videos. Working alone is quite common among the younger set, although they have a network of like-minded friends when they need a hand or a carburetor part or something.

Kids figure that a vehicle is a valuable thing, worthy of their busted-knuckle blood and auto parts receipt treasure. Why wouldn’t they? There’s real treasure hidden under the mold and mouse droppings of an abandoned car. Let’s say a new car costs fifty grand. That’s just the cover charge, of course. In addition, you have to pay exorbitant interest on elephantine loans, taxes out the wazoo, and even if it’s brand new, eyewatering mandatory maintenance costs performed by dealer mechanics in lab coats with big clipboards to hold all the zeros on the bill.

Part of this trend is simply what’s possible nowadays. Nothing in any of these car restoration videos is mysterious to me. I’ve done a slipshod job at a lot of the operations depicted. But back in the day, both the information necessary to know what to do, and the availability of car parts to do it, was light years harder to find. These guys are performing miracles, don’t get me wrong, but maybe the most miraculous thing is how easy it is for them to immediately get any kind of gasket, belt, or rebuild kit for 50-year old cars. We had to fight snakes in junkyards to get the same stuff most of the time. And the knowledge? Mostly hard knocks, and hearsay back before the intertunnel. These videos are incredible not only for what they’re accomplishing, but how well they’re depicting it. It’s cinematic shop class, and you could take a whack (literally, sometimes) at fixing a similar car just by watching a few of these videos. And stocking up on Marvel Mystery Oil, transmission fluid, and band-aids.

So stay with me here. If a new car is worth fifty grand plus, then an abandoned car is worth that, too, if all you care about is using it for its intended purpose, which is transportation. In the words of Peter Lawrence of Arabia O’Toole, what seems impossible to some is quite doable if you’re dedicated enough to pull it off. “It’s only a matter of going.”

And bringing a trailer.