My time one summer at Santin Chevrolet in Mystic taught me how to do many tasks, not the least of which was how to improvise.

One time, I was asked to replace a license plate bulb on a car sitting in the middle of the shop. In order to avoid getting down on my hands and knees I borrowed a creeper so that I could lie down under the rear of the car and work over my head.

I thought it was easier to do it that way. I should have noticed that while I was working on the light, it got quiet in the shop.

While I was on my back, one of the mechanics got in the car, started it, and drove it away. There I was, lying there with a bulb in one hand and a screwdriver in the other, shouting to the mechanic to bring the car back.

I was probably the only guy in the shop not laughing!

On another occasion I was asked to remove a radiator from a Chevy that was being repaired. The radiator had to go for repairs to a shop in New London that specialized in that job. I believe it was Creme Automotive, which I don’t think is any longer in business.

I put the radiator in the back of the truck and took it over to New London. Creme said they’d call when it was ready. When the call came I went back to the New London and retrieved the Chevy radiator from the front of the shop.

It looked pretty good. They’d even painted it.

After bringing it back and turning it over to the mechanic who was working on the customer’s car, I returned to the lube room. Several minutes later he came in to see me.

He said, “Bob, did you take that radiator out?” I told him I had. His next statement was, “Then let’s see you put it back in.”

I went to the car, picked up the radiator, and it wouldn’t fit. It was about a half-inch too wide.

I had taken the wrong radiator from Creme.

I returned to New London and explained the situation to the folks there. They told me that Santin’s radiator was probably at M. J. Sullivan Chevrolet in New London. That company had also had a radiator repaired that day.

I went over to Sullivan’s and, sure enough, one of their mechanics was wondering why the radiator he was trying to install was too small!

Santin’s was a dealership that extended extra courtesies to its customers, such as picking up cars and returning them. This, of course, required two people.

The fellow with whom I worked at this task was John Scroggins, the retired Groton chief of police. One morning we were sent to pick up a Chevy in Stonington. When we got there the keys were not in the car, or in any of the places that people hide them.

We were going to go back to the shop when I got the idea of trying my own Chevy keys. Sure enough, they started the customer’s car.

Somebody once told me that GM repeated ignition keying every 10,000 units. That makes the odds 1 in 10,000!

When we got back to the shop the service manager was on the phone with the customer who had called to explain that she forgot to leave the key and was wondering how we were able to get the car.

I remember hearing the service manager tell her that his men were professionals. Frankly, it was pure dumb luck!

Car problems

Another pickup led to white knuckles. We had to get a Cadillac on the Groton side of Mystic. We had keys, but the car wouldn’t start.

John’s idea was to push it to the shop.

Although we didn’t have a wrecker, we had a padded front bumper on the truck. And so, off we went with me behind the wheel of a Cadillac with power brakes and power steering and no power!

I put on the flashers and John honked – a lot! Policemen on both sides of the river stopped traffic as we came down West Main, over the bridge, and turned left on Holmes Street. I coasted up to the service entrance.

Working at Santin’s that summer didn’t make me a mechanic, but it did provide me with a couple of shirts. When I returned to UConn at the end of the summer, one of the more fashion-conscious guys in Sherman House, my dormitory in the Towers, asked if I’d bought a new fall wardrobe.

I pointed to my Super Chevy Service shirt and said, “Yes. I’m wearing it.”

Robert Welt of Mystic is a retired Groton Public Schools teacher.