Subj: Just like the ol' days
Date: 3/3/01 12:48:20 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: bellytk@nh.ultranet.com (John Linville)
To: leedodge@mediaone.net (Lee Dodge), FastmetalBDF@aol.com (Bruce
Fergueson), RonnieRoadster@aol.com (Ron SanGiovanni),
boogiewoogie12@hotmail.com (Doug Anderson), driscollsl@inpo.org (steve
driscoll), gilbert1@mediaone.net (Robert Gilbert)
well, I relived my youth today and you know what? The youth can have it!
My son calls me last night and tells me that he has found a body to use for
his comp car/dragster project. Will I go with him today to get it? Sure,
no problem, come over at noon. So off we go to Maine. Now Maine is a funny
state. Mostly populated by folks that talk funny and live in mobile homes
with the wheels still on. Only difference between rural Maine and
Appalachia is they get a lot more snow in Maine and they have moose. Anyway
we go to Carelton's (better known to the hot rod community as "hoho" due to
his cackling laugh) Junkyard emporium of wonderful stuff. Forty two old
school buses so packed with junk you couldn't get in the doors to see what's
there. Then several acres of frames, bodies, etc, most of which a
respectable steel recycler wouldn't take for free. First thing I note is
that Carelton, recently married for the first time right after he retired
from the East Eliot Garage, has spruced up. He no longer uses those orange
handled clamps to hold his pant's fly shut but now has a real zipper. Also
there appears to be a lot less grease on him. His wife, a charming rural
Maine debutante with less teeth than her husband came to the marriage with
countless children and various other family members who now dwell in a
section of the junkyard in various structures mostly made from trailers
interconnected with scrap lumber breezeways. Out into this Disneyland of
old tin we go. First thing I hear my son say is "gee, it snowed and I'm not
sure where the stuff is". Should have turned around then and found a Dunkin
Donuts. Anyway we stomp around in ankle deep snow, except for those times
when the snowbank isn't a snow bank but a pile of scrap covered with white
snow. In those cases, your leg disappears up to your knee followed by
contusions to your shin and a shoe full of snow. Oh boy, what fun. We find
his prize! It is the back half of a Model A tudor sedan. He had assured me
it was free from the frozen ground. Ah the impetuouness of youth. One side
and the back were free, the rest was similar to one of those mammoths over
in Siberia. Encased in solid ice adjacent to a large elm tree. After an
hour chopping with a sign stake we found, the side is freed. Now where are
the doors? He can't find them so we trudge through old Divco milk trucks
and the cowls of a dozen '49-54 Chevy pickups and finally locate two doors
that will work. They say '35 Buick on them but the shape is right and we
only need the skin and window opening. A cowl is found, probably Model A,
filled with snow and ice. We can barely lift it from its resting place and
stumble across the snow covered landscape tripping on concealed bumpers and
frames, using what the Navy taught me were a "few well chosen expressions in
a time of stress". Now the shopping list is complete. We turn the body so
that the rear panel is down in the snow and pile the other parts on top. We
both pull this pile across the snowy road, negotiating the snow pile speed
bumps Carelton has on the yard roads as if anyone would want to make a
midnight foray into this scrapheap! Now I know how those Egyptian
conscripts felt that towed those blocks for the pyramids. We only lacked
the whip carrying overseer. We stop to pay for the "treasures" and see that
a dozen little kids who call Carelton "grampy" are around his shop wood
stove performing mayhem with various tools from his box. Carelton laughs
and tells us they are learning about tools today. I step back when a
precocious six year old shows me a evil looking hatchet and tells me with a
demented gleam that is "wicked sharp, eyah". We quickly give Carelton his
toll of twenty dollars and depart. By now, my shins hurt, my feet are wet,
I am tired and really in need of a good hot coffee. To think I did this in
my salad days and thought is was fun. But my son is showing me sketches in
the snow of how it will come together and I reminisce on how it was to be
that young and excited. I write this with dry jeans and socks on and a hot
cup of tea made by Miss Linda. Life is good after all.
regards, John
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