tala: The Car
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| Summer 1963 from Several Letters Home: Asker is a big rural farming-vacation place outside of Oslo, and, because of its size and the distance to our other four sets of Elders, we will be driving a car. (The car was a blue Bedford bus or van; with sliding driver and passenger doors; dual-opening rear doors; two red-naugahyde, forward-tipping driver and passenger bucket seats; and two length-wise, red-naugahyde bench seats, facing each other on each side behind the bucket seats, for transporting members and investigators to Church and Branch activities. The driver and passenger seats had seat and shoulder belts, even then. Often when it was just the two of us as the “cool dudes” we were, we would drive around with the sliding doors in their locked-open positions to view the magnificent scenery.) Rent on the car is kr. 125 or $18, and the Mission will pay for any transportation over kr. 100. The car is really a great advantage. Actually, it’s not a car, but a small bus. It is an English Bedford. But, it has it’s disadvantages along the financial side of things. Whew – this first month is going to “kill” me. I have already spent nearly all my last check and not even half the month is gone. I certainly hope that money makes it here fast. But, even then, it is going to be hard to make the next check-time. Better have it here as soon as possible. This month is worse, because then the mission office reimburses me by cutting down the rent on the car the amount over Kr. 100 I spend on gas, grease, & oil, etc. So next month won’t be so bad. I hope!! I am just about scared to ask you for a little extra money again this month. But, I’m afraid that I haven’t been too great when it comes to managing my finances here these last two or three months. But as it is now, I am going to get a loan from the mission office to last out the rest of this month. This car is truly running me dry, but like I said in my last letter, it won’t be this way next month. Never the less, if you could send me $125, it will help me to pay off this loan and get ahead of myself. Date Book, Tuesday, June 25, 1963: Car to Drammen for service. Well, it has been quite a while since I sat down and wrote a real letter. What with having to get the car repaired and our proselyting activities, we have been pretty busy here of late.
The car has been giving us some trouble here lately with a bad oil leak. We had it in three times to see if we could get it fixed, but to no avail. Last week, we left it in Drammen for a couple of days while they tore the engine nearly completely apart. We had to ride bicycles around for those two days, and, believe me, it took a lot of effort. We got the thing back Saturday and then yesterday it started missing something terribly. I kind of figured it was a spark plug that had gone wrong, but, since we didn’t do any work on it, we have to take it back this morning. It surely wastes good proselyting time to do this so much. Back again! That is what it was – a spark plug. Date Book, Thursday, July 25, 1963: 9:00 Car to Drammen |
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