{"id":323878,"date":"2020-05-29T06:06:51","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T20:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=323878"},"modified":"2020-05-29T06:06:51","modified_gmt":"2020-05-28T20:06:51","slug":"from-working-at-sea-to-working-on-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/from-working-at-sea-to-working-on-cars\/","title":{"rendered":"From working at sea to working on cars"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
David Michael Rodak poses with a 1965 Buick Century Classic that he fondly calls \u201cDriving Miss Daisy,” after a 1989 American movie with the same name that featured Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman, and Dan Aykroyd. (BEA CABRERA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sometime ago, while driving along Isa Drive, a white and red car parked in somebody\u2019s garage caught my attention and it was hard to unsee it. I knew it was a vintage car but I didn\u2019t know what kind. It was a sight that you only see in television and movies these days.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the law of attraction, I finally saw up close this shiny, beyond mint, 1955 Century Buick one Saturday afternoon at a gasoline station and thought this was my chance to meet the driver and owner. I asked him if we could talk about the car, I got a yes, and permission to set foot in the garage that I used to see from afar.<\/p>\n

His name is David Michael Rodak. Originally from North Carolina, he has made Saipan his home for the past 10 years. I found him engaging. \u201cI was a merchant marine and was working on the ships out there. I lived in Hawaii and my ship came here, I thought this is so much nicer and cheaper than Hawaii\u2026 not all congested. \u2026And this beauty with me is \u2018Driving Miss Daisy,\u2019\u201d he said, \u201ca 66-year-old Century Buick, all original, all stock, still drives from zero to 100 miles an hour and she is mine. \u2026I still have to take her to the next level and that is to repaint. She is still wearing her original paint and nobody makes them anymore,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The 1955 Century Buick is known as the \u201cHot Rod\u201d Buick. A hot rod car back in the day is a car that has been specifically modified to give it extra power and speed. \u201cWhen it came out, it cost $2,963 to own a brand-new model. \u2026It was made to be bigger and quieter than a Cadillac. \u2026The model name \u2018Century\u2019 was based on the car\u2019s ability to cruise 100 mph,\u201d Rodak said.<\/p>\n

He said that cars and motorcycles are his passion even as a kid. \u201cI have this mentality that if I couldn\u2019t fix the car, then I couldn\u2019t afford to drive the car and I didn\u2019t own a car until I was 29 years old. I was always into Harley Davidson motorcycles and the car guys would always ask me to fix their cars, so I finally decided to get an old car or truck,\u201d Rodak said.<\/p>\n

He found Driving Miss Daisy on Craigslist\u2014an American sales advertisement website\u2014 four years ago and knew that he had to have her. \u201cI was looking for a 1952 Cadillac but found her instead. I bought it from Bill Gates\u2019 neighborhood in Seattle, Washington. \u2026I flew from Saipan to Seattle, took a cab to the house where it was for sale and drove it away. I drove it cross-country from Washington state to San Diego, went up Route 66 and on the east, west, south and north coasts and finally shipped it here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At that time, he was with the merchant marines and, while waiting for his ship to pick him up, he would usually stay in a hotel room. In San Francisco, he was paying between $100 to $140 a night and sometimes he would have to be there for 30 days. \u201cI also bought this car because it is big enough so I can sleep in it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rodak is now retired and spends most of his days on a couple of projects\u2014reassembling, reviving, and re-upholstering his 1965 Corvette, Bronco pick-up, and his 1967 Harley Davidson Police Special. \u201cI was a chief cook and baker on the ship that loved engines on wheels. My mother owned a restaurant, my father was a welding engineer, and I grew up in that environment. That\u2019s what I know how to do and what I love to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is kind of weird to be retired because it is happy hour all the time and you can do whatever you want. \u2026I have a bond with cars and motorcycles because we are both old, we try to take care of ourselves and wake up each morning because we are part of history,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Before ending the interview, I spotted a white dog sitting behind the line of plants as if listening to our conversation. Rodak said the dog\u2019s name is Speedy. Speedy was in in good spirits as he approached us and I couldn\u2019t help but notice that he was dragging his lower body.
\n\u201cSpeedy was hit in the pelvis by a door that had fallen when Super Typhoon Souldelor hit,\u201d Rodak said.<\/p>\n

As a dog lover myself, I felt sad about that but Rodak said not to worry. \u201cHe has wheels that I made and that\u2019s why he still lives up to his name.\u201d<\/p>\n

I still drive by Rodak\u2019s house along Isa Drive and I get giddy when I see Driving Miss Daisy\u2019s hood up. I know Rodak is somewhere under, over, or inside the car, tinkering and making it better and I remember Rodak\u2019s words. \u201cIf I can go and fix them up and maybe sell them, I will. I get to keep busy, can\u2019t just sit down, and why stop doing something? That\u2019s when the rust sits in and next thing you know you are in the bone yard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometime ago, while driving along Isa Drive, a white and red car parked in somebody\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":323879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}