Dear Adam,
How are you? You’ve been on my mind a lot lately, so I’m writing to let you know I’m thinking of you. I believe it has something to do with the fact that I am changing careers. I know you were a mechanic as a teenager, and that’s what I’m currently training to be.
Josephine said you were wonderful (always volunteering to fix her car!) and proudly showed me pictures of you in your jumpsuit carrying a box filled with all sorts of tools. You were apparently the best mechanic Northcote had ever seen? I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s true. Working on cars looked like a lot of fun back then – sort of like you needed some sort of difficult engineering degree. Now, all I need is common sense and a little bit of training. We have all sorts of fancy tools and technology to make our jobs easier. I suppose that’s true for any industry, though. Accountants have calculators and super-powerful computers; athletes have machines that measure their muscle mass and electronic timing systems to perfectly pinpoint their race time. It’s all changing.
My new mentor, Bob, has worked in the Northcote area for decades, so he has loads of experience and is very friendly and professional with customers. Apparently, he even knows who you are! Yesterday, Bob kindly taught me to conduct my first transmission service and repair. Northcote is a central location, so we get a lot of people from the surrounding suburbs coming in for car repairs, as well as general logbook checks. From my limited understanding, the car’s transmission system appears to be unnecessarily complicated. I was so nervous to touch it – it felt like one wrong move, and I’d break the whole car! It’s a very delicate system, so it requires a fair bit of know-how. Luckily, Bob is more than happy to help.
I’ll be visiting you and Betty next month. Please tell her to make her strawberry pastries. Looking forward to seeing you!
Love, Alice.