October 7th, 2021

    I want to apologize for compounding the stress in all your lives this morning when my almanac post wasn’t here to serve you as the first media event in your lives the very same week that Facebook and Instagram crashed world-wide for six hours. I assure you it was the furthest thing from my mind; as I had my original post started long before my mortifying event exposed itself just before sundown on Wednesday, October 6th.

    I bought a 2011 Polaris Sportsman 500 in May of this year for reasons that defy reasoning. It earned a short mention in my blog post of August 26th, 2021, that  alluded to it as a purchase I’ve sorely regretted making, with every trip to the repair shop since; yesterday, being the most recent. This time it involved making the 40 mile one-way trip four times, the latter round trip just before sunset with Chairman Joe watching for deer jumping from the ditch as I watched the centerline and both roadside shoulders.

    Owning an ATV can be exciting, one needs only to watch Youtube videos for the rest of their lives to get the thrill out of owning one of these high tech machines -- or be on hand to hear about one of Chairman Joe’s in-laws and his four wheeler adventures through Beltrami Island State Forest, and Roseau County’s hills and vales; the poster-boy of reckless No-Fear four-wheeling, something that adrenaline-seeking motocross motorcycle racers innately possess and gives them that wild man allure that turns some people’s heads, including game wardens, and women drawn to the obviously untamable, his wife being but one.

    Not so much me. Until I bought one myself, I just saw them as noisy combustion-engine machines that are best used on dirt tracks within the confines of the Metrodome -- and not outdoors where they typically tear up the landscape i.e., roadside ditches, lake shores, and stream beds all in the theme of ‘outdoor family fun.’ The state’s roadsides are scarred by the tracks of these off-road vehicles.

    I remember a local forester who worked for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources until he retired. He had walked forests throughout northwest Minnesota for all but the last couple years of his long tenure when they issued him a four-wheeler to use. It seldom left the back of his truck except when someone else would drive it off to service the truck. He refused to use it; he was fine without it; he may have retired earlier than he originally planned.

    I worked at a toy factory for 34 years and never bought a machine of any kind for myself. They never turned my crank so to speak. But I succumbed to purchasing one in May of this year, because my wife urged me to purchase this machine from a nearby business that sold off-road machines like four-wheelers and motorcycles that she saw in a Facebook ad. She said I needed one; that I could use it to go someplace faster and more reliably than walking everywhere or using my truck or tractor. She said I could use the snowplow that came with it and clear our yard and road. I said I have a tractor and a seven-foot snowblower to do that stuff. A four wheeler is just a toy in comparison.

    But she’s the accountant in our family, and if she said we could do it, we could, so at her urging I drove over to the place to look at this machine.

    It was ten years old, about the same vintage of most of the other vehicles in our yard seeing as we never buy anything new; the first and last time for me was 1972. The Subaru I drive is a 1998; the Saturn of the wife’s is a 2002; the Massey-Ferguson tractor is a 1967; the Chevy pickup is a 1993, and the van is a 1995. A 2011 Sportsman 500 would not only fit right in, but become the newest ‘horse’ in our remuda. I could moreso deal with an old machine than a computerized newer vehicle; there’s nothing a layman can do on them -- ask a farmer these days. I could get a service manual and learn about it; I was pretty familiar with many of its parts and many of my other friends have similar vehicles; it seemed a pretty safe buy.

    The four-wheeler had 6200 miles on it and didn’t look bad as far as wear and tear on it; the engine sounded good. It didn’t smoke. The tires were in great shape. They had done a light servicing on it; new air filter, oil filter, oil change; all fluids up to snuff. It had wide footwells, front and rear racks, plastic fenders, and a body that was built to be taken apart in sections for servicing. It had a front winch that worked. And a low profile windshield that, for all practical purposes, was useless to see through; I didn’t need it anyway.

    Like I said, it had a snowplow on the front I didn’t need, but the business wouldn’t give me a break on the asking price without it. I should have suspected something then -- especially when the HOT engine light came on upon starting it cold. “Well, we know it isn’t hot,” the guy said. “We just started it.”

    Still, I was very familiar with this on these Sportsman models as I had borrowed one from a friend many years ago to do a little work in a place my tractor was too big to access, and it had a bogus HOT engine light on it I came to find out later. I could recall the many times that “Check Engine” lights had come up on the dash of my cars and those of friends, over the years, that we ignored or covered up with a piece of black electrical tape to stop annoying us.

    So it was, with no more checking it out than listening to the engine, and asking a few questions, and riding it maybe for two minutes, that I wrote them a check for it and rode it home three miles. It got me there, although the HOT engine light came on within a hundred yards of the place; it didn’t overheat. I was pleased and set off to remove the snowplow and store it somewhere; and remove the windshield, etc.

    About a week later, I had finished spraying a food plot with the ATV, using a Fimco sprayer I had purchased. I had originally planned to use my little Toyota 4x4 pickup to do it, but I had bought a four-wheeler, and so I used that instead!

    The four-wheeler died just beyond a jungle of willow and trees, at least someplace that I could access with the Chevy pickup and trailer. It wouldn’t even attempt to engage the starter. I tried everything to get it going, but nothing worked toward that end although the headlights worked, the winch worked, and even the fan ran. It would not start.

    Frustrated, I left it in the field overnight, unable to get it onto the trailer as the power to the winch wasn’t enough to pull it up my ramps. I called Chairman Joe to come over the next morning to help me.

    I went out to the truck and meet Joe there as he could access the field using a different road. For the hell of it, I got on the four-wheeler and turned the key; it started right up. WTH?

    So, I drove it onto the trailer and thanked Joe for his assistance, even if it was just to listen to me rant. I took it back to the shop on the trailer, but they couldn’t find anything wrong with it, except to suggest when I hooked the sprayer up to it may have been too much on the alternator; so accepting it as something I had affected. I took it home.

    I learned that when it conked out on me periodically, all I had to do was let it sit for awhile and it would start again; typical of my old machines. Not very convenient but workable. I was retired, no hurry about it ...

    The wife not so much. She wanted it fixed. So I made an appointment for it and attempted to drive it the three miles back to the shop, she meeting me there, when halfway there, on a gravel road, it sputtered and died far from the highway and rolled to the shoulder. Dead.

    I called the shop but they have one of those shop numbers they never answer except after they close; you get an explanation that they were unable to answer, etc, etc so there wasn’t any real point to call, but I tried anyway; it was getting pretty close to closing by that time. Still, it was a beautiful evening to sit quietly on a Grimstad Township road and look across the fields ... The four-wheeler wouldn’t start.

    You say, “Where was your wife?” She doesn’t have a cellphone (her preference) so we were incommunicado. She couldn’t see me where I was and figured I was at the shop, but when I didn’t show up; she didn’t know where I was. So she went home waiting for me to call ...

    I called Chairman Joe, but he wasn’t home. Then I called a neighbor woman we know, who I knew would rescue me -- if she was home. She was. I left the four-wheeler on the road -- hoping someone would steal it.

    Chairman Joe came home, and we went back with the truck and ramps; then the four wheeler started and I drove it up into the pickup. We got to the shop when it was just about closed. The ATV wouldn’t start. The proprietor was happy about it because now he had an opportunity to check it out with his testers and determined it was the stator that was bad. The only thing was it was just before Memorial Day weekend, that and they were so far behind on their work load it’d be at least two weeks before they could even look at it ...

    “No problem, I don’t need it anyway for awhile ...”

    After 23 days, a new stator plate, some fusible links, and new wiring, costing me several hundred dollars, I drove it home, confident everything would be all right now; the HOT light didn’t come on. Yeah baby!

    I needed to do some spraying, and put everything together; going as far as installing a second battery independent of the new alternator that I secured to one of the foot wells to run the sprayer. The HOT engine light came on, disappointing me; but I ignored it as I had always done because, well, it didn’t overheat, right? I got about 200 yards, when, again right in a place that was accessible with the pickup, the engine overheated and spewed hot antifreeze all over the place.

    I never even yelled; never even got the least bit excited. I just called Chairman Joe to help me --again, get this four wheeler back to the yard. We hooked up a chain and he pulled me about a half mile back as we couldn’t just turn around where we were. I was lucky all the antifreeze didn’t leak out. I couldn’t find any leaks. No broken hoses; no bad clamps. Had the fan run? The fan use to run before I took it to the shop; but I couldn’t remember it starting when I started out that morning ... I couldn’t prove it was the shop’s fault either.

    Further tests (and YouTube videos), told me that fan would run only if wired directly to the battery, so adding a toggle switch to the side of the body, I made the fan run all the time to be able to use the thing. So I slowly added antifreeze to the running engine until I filled the reservoir and radiator. No overheating problems again! Hoo yah!

    My wife’s son came up to visit us and took the four wheeler for a ride; when he came back he said it stalled at speeds over 15 mph, and one back wheel felt wobbly. Frustrated with this whole fiasco, I took it to a different shop by Warroad that a friend highly recommended. Very busy, just like the local shop, they welcomed my business, assuring me that they could remedy any problem I had with my ATV. So I drove the 40 miles, instead of three, with the four wheeler on a trailer behind my pickup and dropped it off there, knowing that once again they were pretty far behind in their work too and it would be awhile ... it was just after the Labor Day weekend.

     Yesterday, about a month to the day, they called and said my four-wheeler was ready. So I drove the Chevy the 40 miles back over there to get my machine. The owner’s son told me what they did as he printed out my itemized receipt, and smiled when he handed my card back to put in my billfold.

    An employee drove the vehicle out from the building and, with my encouragement drove it up onto the trailer. Looked great, sounded great; everything had the potential of staying great. He jumped off the trailer; and I secured the ATV and the ramps to it. I drove away happy. Yes, it had cost me an amount similar to what I paid just before the 4th of July. But everything was secured now: check, check ... check and check. Perfect. And a nice evening for a ride on it when I get home too...

    I got all the way home -- the 40 miles. I pulled the ramps out and secured them and reached up to the ignition to start the engine when I saw -- to my horror-- there was no key there. There was no key in the ignition. There was no key in my pockets. No key in this pocket or this pocket or this pocket or in the front seat of my truck ... I called the shop -- no answer!

    The wife called from the house, “How’s it run?”

    “It can’t!” I hollered back. “I’ve lost the key!”

    Soon she was outside looking for the key, suggesting this and that. I tried calling the shop again. No answer, the shop closed at 5 pm ...

    I didn’t want my wife to try and help me. Anyone knows that husbands and wives sometimes clash over things like unasked-for assistance, but anyone knows that wives usually ignore their irritated husbands and go on doing their own thing -- which I admit almost saved the day, but didn’t find us the key.

    Going on Facebook, she looked up the shop and as she was reading all its rave reviews found one person from Warroad who included his phone number with it; I called him and hurriedly explaining my dilemma asked him if he knew the proprietor’s personal phone number. He didn’t know it but gave me his first name, which I didn’t know. Using the internet, I managed to find a cellphone number for who I thought was the business owner. Bingo! Not him.

    But it was his son, the same guy I had talked to when I paid for my machine. He said it was their company policy not to remove keys from the customer machines; that the employee wouldn’t have given me the key to my machine but left it in the ignition.

    And with that, I realized I had never given the key a thought before I left the shop. I had lost the only key I had for the machine! It was wired to a manilla-colored tag about six inches long with my name on it written in black felt marker. I had forgotten all about the key!

    So, of course my wife suggested I call Joe.

 

   "Your part will be in on Monday."