The Summer of the Mazda

Amanda (Frazier) Howard

There are so many stories it is hard to decide what to post here first. My dad was very talented in many things.

I remember when I was 14 and came to visit him for the summer. He had a Mazda B12 pickup that he had forever and it had been sitting for a while. We spent the summer him teaching me the basic of what a vehicle needs to start. He observed and helped where needed for me to rebuild the carburetor. After the carburetor was rebuilt and in working order, it still wouldn’t start. He knew how excited I was to get it to run and to try to drive it.

After a bit more troubleshooting he had determined the problem was in the gas tank. We dropped the tank and the top was rusting at the intake. He found some PVC and created a temporary way to make it work. We did get that truck started that summer and he taught me the basics of a standard.

I didn’t get the truck to move very far that summer but the lessons learned were irreplaceable and helped me many times throughout my life.