The Homesteading Wojo

Do you remember Det. Stan 'Wojo' Wojciehowicz on Barney Miller that mid-70's detective sitcom on TV? Wojo was always driving Captain Barney Miller crazy because he would never tell the story from the beginning; he always forgot something or told it in little pieces as it occurred to him. Barney would ask if everything went OK while he was out of the office, and Wojo would say, "Yeah, there's hardly any more smoke."
"What smoke? Was there a fire?" Barney would ask and then the story would painfully develop.
"Well, it wasn't my fault the monkey got loose."
"What monkey?!"
"You know, the one the circus mimes brought in."
"What circus!!"
And so it would go, bit by bit.

I live a series of Wojo moments. For instance, I'll firmly assure Nancy I haven't seen a rental movie, and as the film unfolds, I'll say, "I think I remember this scene. Oh yeah, that character seems familiar..." Nancy hates it when I do that.

Today I tried to fix the jeep. It's been overheating recently, and yesterday I discovered a hole in the top heater hose. I remembered it happening before; the thermostat gets stuck, the engine overheats and a hose pops with the pressure. So I buy a new thermostat. No problem, two bolts worth of work and $15 for a new thermostat, seal and heater hose.

Then, as the parts counter tells me they don't have the heater hose, I vaguely remember last time also having to buy a length of generic hose and bending it to fit. Later, as I tried to coax off the broken hose, I remember (immediately after doing it once again) breaking the heater assembly. Another trip to the parts store.

All this culminates in finally realizing I can’t get to the bottom bolt that reveals the thermostat and remembering that last time I made it to this exact same point before giving up and taking the jeep to the mechanics.

If I wasn’t so much of a Wojo, I’d have remembered all this $47 dollars and 3 hours ago.

Reading homesteading websites and blogs, I find that as a group, homesteaders are an industrial, capable and frugal group of people. This means you fix your own vehicle/tractor/generator/washing machine/well pump/ nuclear reactor whenever you can. My online search for instructions didn’t work; I think I’m going to get a Chilton book and figure out how to loosen the serpentine belt to get to that bolt.