Who Is Spanky?

hello, This IS Spanky.

You know, it is hard to describe yourself to some mystery person reading a webpage, but let’s do this. Here’s how I got into automotive.

 Why I decided to get into automotive feels like too much to get into in such a small space. I have always enjoyed working with my hands and have always been mechanically inclined. 

 Per Kentucky state law, I took the ASVAB during my junior year of high school and scored nationally in the top 2% in Mechanical Comprehension. The military recruiters were ringing the phone off the hook trying to get me to join up and work on their rigs. Although honored, I wasn’t mature enough to “give up” my freedom of choice when I could be pursuing my dream of being an artist.  (Insert grown up eyeroll.)

 Being a good daughter, I moved away from home two months after graduating high school and never moved back into my parents house. After spending a few years “just having fun” and finally enrolling in college to major in fine art with an emphasis in ceramics, I had what I call an emotional and physical breakdown which caused me to take a year off of college to reevaluate my college career and my over all well being.

 I ended up nannying four British children ages 3,5,7,and 9 for that year. Towards the end of that time, a friend of mine called me at about 10 o”clock at night in a panic because there was “something wrong” with her car. “You know about brakes, right? Hmmm. Kinda. My brother Dave taught me how to change my front brake pads. That was about all I knew in that department. But she was stressed and tired from a long day of work.

 So I drove the 30 minutes it took to get to her location and hopped in her car. I drove a few feet and hit the brakes. “GRIND!” I hopped out and peered through her wheel to confirm what I saw in my mind’s eye. Yep. No brake pads. I told her to drive slowly home and to try not to brake much and go to [a chain tire/brake shop] first thing to get new brakes. “How exactly do brakes work?” she asked. I took off her tire to show her. “Well,” I said, “when you push on the brake pedal, it makes this squeeze this until you stop.” “Oh. Wow. …You should be a mechanic!” And that is when an angelic light came on, high above my head, and shone down on me …or it was just the glitchy light in the parking light finally kicking on. Either way, I felt that I needed to ditch my fine art degree and get into automotive.

Four painful 18 credit semesters later, I graduated with an associates of science in automotive technology. That is when I learned that I knew nothing.

 

A rare picture of me having just scooted out from under a MCI coach bus while working for HAPA near Denali Park, Alaska.  

More About Spanky

I grew up in Western Kentucky in a small town on the Ohio River in a large family of eight children. I spent my summers riding bikes, jumping on trampolines, and playing with Barbies and Hot Wheels. I had an excellent childhood.

 As I got older I maintained  about a 3.5 GPA in school but was more interested in art than any other subject but I was particularly captivated by pottery. One day a ceramic artist cam to our art class and demonstrated how to throw a vase on the pottery wheel. It was mesmerizing and I was hooked. I tried desperately to throw bowls on the wheel,  knowing that I certainly would use them to eat out of after I graduated high school. Oh what optimism.  Most were nothing more than glorified ashtrays. The only clay that my teacher had on hand was porcelain that we used for slab and coil projects which happens to be the more difficult of clays to throw. My teacher had little experience in wedging and centering clay, remembering that she had only tried once many years ago in college.

 Why am I telling you this? Aside from the fact you are still reading it, it is because my ambition to excel in pottery drove me to look into college as that was the only pathway to taking a pottery class that I could find. This would eventually help me to find my way to the field of automotive.

 After a couple of years in college, learning Portuguese, working two jobs, and generally loving life, aside from being a literal starving student, things started to fall apart.

I quit one job and increased hours at the other as I was taking a more difficult school workload. I was miserable. My schedule was similar to this: classes from 7am-10am, work from 10:30am to 2pm, classes from 3pm to 5pm, work from 5:30pm to 8pm, and then studying and writing papers all night. To a degree, my schedule worked well, I was constantly doing something. The half hour time gaps were filled with leaving one destination and running to another. Literally running to my vehicle, driving to the next destination, and running inside. I was exhausted and burned out. My private life had fallen apart and I was barely able to keep the whole house of cards from falling down on me.

Now, this leads you to the main text in my About Spanky page of this website.

If you read all of this, send me a message via the contact me page and let me know your thoughts. ;)e

I am a married mother of 3 children. My family is the center of my life. As much as I love most everything about automotive, my family comes FIRST always. Some of my children are neurodivergent who require extra time and attention. I now need to give them more attention than before so please be patient waiting new content.

Pottery

Sewing

Welding

General DIY

Gardening

Canning

Self Reliance

Cake Decorating

Raising Chickens

And anything else I can learn

My Core Values In Quotes

  • "The happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others." -Gordon B. Hinkley  
  • "If you don't want anyone to find out, don't do it." -Chinese Proverb
  • "An empty tank will take you nowhere. Take time to fuel." -Unknown
  • "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work." -Unknown