MORE SUMMER HEAT... lots of it (Part 162a)

MORE SUMMER HEAT… lots of it (Part 162a)

As I’ve previously written I’d been trying to suppress any thoughts about the race car because they were basically negative. What little time I’d devoted to it was to wonder just what we could sell the car for to recoup our losses. But, I didn’t dwell on it. So, with Elle telling me to call Cliffy my first thought was he’d found a buyer, even though there had been no discussion among the partners about selling. The garage where he worked (and where we stored the car) was always noisy so when I finally had him on the phone I had a hard time understanding him. After some miscommunication I finally was able to grasp that he wanted me to go to C J’s… (C J being the very successful driver who’s father (Seeg) had befriended me when I had my own car) and to see C J’s mother… that she had something for him. Now, from the bank where I would normally have been it was about a 10 minute trip but I was 25 miles West of there. We were definitely not communicating well but I did get across to him that even though it was out of the way I’d go there for him.

C J’s shop, where he and his brother worked on their car, was actually a converted potato barn at the family farm. Potato barns are not like conventional barns in that the only thing you see from the outside is a roof. To store potatoes a hole is dug in the ground and then walls, much like a cellar in a home, are built and and a roof put over it. The natural coolness of the ground is enough to keep potatoes from rotting while they are in storage. I drove in the driveway and up to the house. Mrs. “Seeg” answered the door and told me to wait there for a minute. I still had no idea what it was that I was to pick up. After a few minutes I saw C J’s girlfriend, Karen, walking down the hall towards me. That, in itself, was worth the trip. I’d never been introduced to her so she really didn’t know who I was. Even if she had I’m not sure she would’ve recognized me with suit pants, white shirt and a tie. We exchanged names and she indicated that I should follow her.

I’d never seen her wearing anything but white pants and a white t-shirt with a big red number one on the back of it. She was wearing loose fitting denim shorts, a blue tank top that displayed her small breasts quite nicely and an apron. The shorts were too loose fitting for me to even hope for a VPL. Mrs. “Seeg” never came back but was at the end of the hall in the kitchen. Whatever she was making, it sure smelled good. I continued to follow Karen out onto the back porch. There were two things I could readily see… a great expanse of white flowers which I knew were potato plants. The other… clothes on a wash line. It, like a lot of others I’d seen, was on a pulley system from the porch out to a pole about 100 or so feet into the back yard. As we descended the stairs I hung back a little trying to take in just what was being displayed on the single line. It was mostly men’s work clothes and underwear. It wasn’t until we’d almost reached the potato barn that had C J’s race car hauler parked out front that I saw what I’d been hoping to see… a small batch of panties. Unfortunately, they were at the highest point on the line, about 12 feet above my head, so other than the color, white, I couldn’t tell much about them. They’d been hung so the front was facing towards where I was so any chance of recognizing if they were made by Van Raalte (with the large crotch like I had thought they might be), was gone.

We had to walk down a fairly steep ramp to get to the door and once inside the coolness of the space was really noticeable. I saw three complete race cars, all painted white with the number one in red on each. I recognized all of them. One was the very first car C J had raced and it was up on blocks in a corner. The one that really had my attention was the little ‘bug’ that C J had raced to a couple of track championships. The track had ‘outlawed’ it as being too dangerous but C J kept it anyway. The third car was the one he was presently racing. While I was gawking at the cars Karen was imploring me to follow her to the work bench. What I saw were two cylinder heads, all cleaned up and wrapped in clear plastic. I asked if she knew anything about them and all she did was to shake her head, never really answering. I had to ask if I was supposed to take them and she shrugged her shoulders. I stood there in disbelief. C J had run a big block Ford for years until about a month earlier when the crankshaft broke and the motor exploded. Since he hadn’t been doing all that well with the Ford he decided to change to Chevy and had won a couple of main events since then.

There was no easy way too get in touch with Cliffy so I just assumed I was to take them with me. When I told Karen I had to go get my car she just asked me to make sure the door was locked when I left. I followed her up the ramp and because it was fairly steep I was hoping for at least a little peek or VPL… but got neither. After loading the heads into the trunk of my car I saw Mrs. “Seeg” headed my way. She asked if I’d like some ‘new’ potatoes. Never one to turn down free food, I said “Yes”. She pointed to a pick up truck out by the edge of the farm and told me to go take a bag. I thanked her and headed for the truck. To get there I had to walk under the clothes line. At that moment I wasn’t sure that the opportunity to view the panties on the line wasn’t the better part of the deal. Pulling the bag out of the bed of the truck I was about 10 feet away from the clothes and looking up at the backside of the panties. It made my day, for sure, when I saw the large crotch. Now I was almost 100% sure I’d been right about them being made by Van Raalte. Walking back to my car I never took my eyes off them.

Once in the car all my thoughts were on the cylinder heads. I couldn’t imagine what had taken place for us to be getting them. I thought possibly Cliffy had come up with money from someone (Fairlane John ?) to buy them. Even though my intention was to get home early my curiosity about the heads took precedence. By the time I pulled up to the door of the service garage it was close to 6pm and they had closed. I just hoped someone, Cliffy, might still be there. He wasn’t but his father was. I asked if he knew anything about C J’s heads and he smiled when he spoke. I don’t have the exact words he used but they were something along the lines that we (the guys who owned the car) were certainly in the right place at the right time. I think he used the word “clowns” in his description of us. He was in a rush to get home (next door) for supper so all I got was that C J had been the driver of the gasoline delivery tanker that morning and that he and Cliffy got to talking. He could give me no details on what had been worked out for us to get them. As he locked the door he made one last comment and that being that the heads were worth more than the whole race car. That was eye opening!

To be continued...