HOME AGAIN... to some surprises (Part 157c)

HOME AGAIN… to some surprises (Part 157c)

Both of the girls were pretty animated as they gave us the details about their cousins, twin girls a couple of years older than they were. They’d never met them and only knew them from pictures. They’d arrived from Germany in February and stayed with relatives in the Philadelphia area. It was their intention to go to an American college in the Fall and had come over to get used to life in the USA. The way the girls told it to us their mother, Phyllis, pushed for them to spend some time in the country. They lived in a city in Germany and were staying in the outskirts of another city. Phyllis felt they should be exposed to rural life and had finally ‘won’. I asked where they were going to live in their house because I knew that each girl had their own room. It was Mo who answered and I could tell from the tone of her voice she wasn’t all that pleased with the decision that they would have to share a room. Not that we’d remember but Elle asked for the cousins names… Herta and Helga.

The diversion of Barbara and Mo’s visit took some of the pressure off me as far as Elle was concerned. Neither of them had ever been to Florida and when Elle described Marineland and the dolphins and whale performances I could see their sincere interest. I remember our girls asking when they could go… and also remember not being able to give them an answer. I felt it was a good time to ask about how their new house was coming and Barbara laughed. She said she didn’t really know but she said it wouldn’t be ready by July 1st. I didn’t want to go any further on that topic so asked when the twins would arrive. They weren’t sure but said it might be the following weekend. As they left I couldn’t help but to wonder what they’d look like. I’d only met a couple of girls who were actually from Germany and they were taller than both Barbara and Mo and had blonde hair. Only time would tell…

As I said, Barbara and Mo had taken the pressure off me for a while. I tried to keep as low a profile as I could for the rest of the evening. When it was time for the girls to go to bed I again offered to take the suitcase and carry bag upstairs and got Elle’s approval. The first thing I did was to put the carry bag up on the closet shelf with the goal of retrieving the bikini panties while Elle and the girls were at church the next morning. With the bag out of sight I could finally relax. I fully expected to get ‘an earful’ about not being home to watch the girls earlier but got nothing… like I wasn’t even there. Past history told me to wait until morning where a new day and new events would supersede those of the previous day.

As usual for a Sunday I made it to the 8am service at church. Back at home I wasn’t sure what to expect but it certainly wasn’t to be told to return and take the girls so they could attend Sunday school. Elle had gotten a call to teach on Monday and had a week’s worth of wash to do plus getting the house back in order. Trying to make the most of the situation I convinced myself that by doing it without complaining might lessen the damage that my going to work on the race car would bring. Back home by noon, we had lunch and as I ate I tried to figure out what would be the best time to tell of my afternoon plan. Still at the table I spied a old red pickup pull up behind my car in the driveway. I didn’t recognize it until I saw the large form of Big “B” emerging from the cab. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in a while and wondered what brought him to the house.

The girls all loved “B” and pretty much surrounded him as he tried to enter. Elle liked him as well so we had a bit of catching up to do. After a few minutes, “B” looked at Elle and asked if she could spare me for a couple of hours. “B” was always very cagey with Elle in that sense. I stood there, not knowing what he was up to. I hadn’t spoken to him in more than a month. Elle, not surprisingly, asked what for. Very calmly he said he was looking at buying another boat and wanted my advice. I stood there listening to him but was thinking that I needed to get to the garage and the race car. However, Elle, somewhat disapprovingly, gave her approval. In what turned out to be very fortuitous, she never asked how long we’d be or gave us a time to return. Walking out the door I was happy to be free of getting chastised by Elle but had to bring “B” up to date about the race car.(50)

As I’ve written before, “B” was a really good guy. I explained about my commitment to the race car and found him to be more than amenable to changing his plans. Other than Cliffy, we were the first to arrive at the garage. The car was up on jack stands and looked somewhat naked without wheels. While I was away they guys had sanded off the white paint and the numbers and had painted it with a gray primer. Upon seeing the car “B’s” interest in racing was once again, kindled. He asked any number of questions which Cliffy patiently answered. As they chatted the other partners showed up and Cliffy got down to the business at hand.

Opening night was just three weeks away. He’d attended the organizational meeting going over the new rules. The main one had to do with tires.The race track promoter had required that everyone use the same tire manufacturer. The complaints had been many and he’d decided to lift that restriction.
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At this point I’m going to give a little discourse on naivety… mine and the partners. When we’d been offered the car for just $1,000, we all jumped at it. The sales price for cars in the similar racing class usually started at $3,000 and went up from there. The others were so anxious to continue racing (and I to get back into it) that they hadn’t thought about the ‘big picture’… and that was where the money was to come from to operate (race) the car. With Cliffy’s father having paid the bills in the past no one gave it any thought. We’d struggled to get the $1,000 together just to buy the car. I, of all of them, should have picked up on it but hadn’t. Five of the six of us were married, had homes with a mortgage and a combined total of 14 kids. To put it bluntly, we didn’t have any spare money.
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Cliffy then told us that there was a newly designed tire available and, according to the manufacturer, it was the perfect tire for a track the size we were racing on (1/5th of a mile). However, it was $10 a tire more that the old style. For us to buy a set of four we needed approximately $175. I was standing next to “B” and he gave me a ‘rap’ in the arm. I looked up at him and heard him mumble “Wow!”. Glancing around I saw a bunch of blank looks of the faces of the others. I did a quick calculation and came up with my share being $35. I knew I could do it but it would be tough since I’d overspent on the Florida trip. By then the others were complaining that they didn’t have any money they could spare. Cliffy then asked how much could the bunch of us come up with. The final tally was somewhere around $130 with Buster saying he couldn’t come up with anything. It was then that “B” spoke up and said he’d throw in the rest. As we left the shop at least we knew we could race on opening night.

To be continued…