SLOGGING THROUGH WINTER… Good & bad (Part 169z)
Having just
experienced what it was like getting supper ready for three kids and an
infant, Elle chose to wait until around 7:30pm or so before making the
call to Beth. Only it wasn’t Beth who picked up the phone… it was Cliffy.
Beth wasn’t there but he told Elle that he wanted to speak to me as
long as he was on the line. I knew what he wanted… the money he’d
requested/demanded at the meeting he’d called just after returning from
Daytona. Before he could say anything I told him he’d have the $200 I’d
promised on Saturday, the deadline date for all of the team to get their
money in. I don’t remember if he acknowledged what I’d said but I do
remember him saying that he’d made a number of telephone calls to find
out what the cylinder heads we’d gotten from C J and his father were
worth. There were only two other race teams running Ford motors at the
time and neither had any information for him. It seemed like everybody
who’d been running Ford equipment had “bailed’ and were now running
Chevys so there were a lot of Ford parts up for sale. Cliffy knew I had a
relationship with “Seeg”, C J’s father, and suggested that I go see him
to negotiate a price. We both knew they had cost over $500 when they got
them new so Cliffy wanted me to go negotiate a reasonable price… like
the $200 I’d pledged. I was amenable to that so told him I’d drive up
to see “Seeg” on my lunch break.
Cliffy went on that Alan had
given him $100 and would have more come Saturday. Dick, who was Cliffy’s
best friend, hadn’t come up with any money as he’d had to pay cash for
his seed potatoes for his farm but was “good” for his share. Joe had
called to say he was “out”. He was now living just outside the city and
going through his welding apprenticeship and didn’t have the time for
the race car. Cliffy told me he’d paid his father over $300 on the
outstanding amount we’d run up during the previous season. A quick count in my mind told me he’d gotten over $600 including my promised money. That left
Buster… and just the thought of that had me shaking my head. So, I asked
what he was going to do. There was silence for a few seconds before I
heard him meekly ask if there wasn’t a way for me to come up with some
more money. My head told me “NO!” but my love of racing wouldn’t let me
say the word out loud. There was a period of silence on my part before I
uttered the fateful words… “I’ll work on it…”. But I did ask if any of
the people we owed money to were really desperate for what we owed.
Cliffy said the tire guy had paid our outstanding tire bill out of his
own pocket and we owed him almost $300. He said his plan was to get
Alan’s money on the weekend and take it to him as a gesture of good
faith. Cliffy reminded me that we needed to keep Mack, the tire guy,
happy so we’d be able to get the “pick of the lot” when the new tires
for the season came in. It made sense and had me really thinking hard
about what to do. I closed by telling him I’d go see “Seeg” the next
day about the heads.
Beth called around 9pm. The story on Penny was that she was
chronically late and had been caught lying about a classroom incident.
She told Elle she liked her but that she was ‘immature”. Elle was to
teach the class until a permanent teacher could be hired and when she
asked Beth if they had anyone to interview she said they didn’t. Elle
and I ended up talking about who was going to watch Kaye, our youngest,
on the days her mother couldn’t/wouldn’t. She didn’t have an answer but
said she had the weekend to work on it. An immediate selfish thought of
mine was with that extra money coming in for possibly a week or two I
could ’skim’ a little from my pay to put towards the race car.
At
work I mentioned to Bret that I was going up to “Seeg’s” farm to pay
him for the cylinder heads. I knew it would get his attention because C J
was his friend and favorite racer. It had about killed him that he
couldn’t get to the track where C J and Cliffy raced the past season. He
told me that C J was building a brand new race car for the upcoming
season and that it was going to be “radical”. I asked him what that
meant and he shrugged his shoulders. All he would tell me that they
weren’t letting anyone see it. I asked if that included him and he nodded his head in an affirmative way. That puzzled me, as close as Bret
and C J were. I withdrew $200 before leaving the bank. It took about 15
minutes to make it to the farm. I knocked on the door and C J’s mother
answered and took me to the kitchen. “Seeg” was eating his lunch and
invited me to join him but I didn’t have a lot of time so declined.
Still standing, I told him we (the race car team) wanted to pay for the
heads. I remember him looking up and having a surprised look on his
face. Then he laughed following that up with something about not ever
expecting to get paid for them. I didn’t have time to ‘digest’ what that
inferred and asked, point blank, how much he wanted for them. I swear
he didn’t hesitate at all when he asked how much I’d brought. I had two
$100 bills rolled up in my pocket and immediately reached in to get it. I
told him what I had and he responded “Sold!” and reached out his hand. I
deposited the money in his hand and then stood there not believing the
situation. I’d lay in bed that morning going over a whole ‘pitch’ to
make to him to get him to accept the $200. He spread the bills on the
table and then shook my hand. I wanted to say “Thank you” but it seemed
awkward. So, I told him I had to get back to work and started backing
away. As I did I told him I’d heard that the team was building a new
car. All he did was to smile as I continued towards the door. Driving
back to work all I could think was that it had been a ‘win’ for us to start the
year off.
Mae caught up with me soon after getting back to the
bank. Between the weather and other interruptions she hadn’t earned very
much from the cellar project and wanted to know if we could work the
next morning (Saturday). Truthfully, I’d lost some of the enthusiasm I’d had when
we started. I hesitated a bit and then, with the subject of the race car
fresh on my mind, told her we could. Even though it was two and a half
months until opening night and there wasn’t a lot of work to do on
the car to prepare for the season, there would be some and it would
probably entail working on Saturdays. I decided to ‘bite the bullet’ and
tackle the cellar right away. I went down the stairs to look at it again and
to formulate a plan of attack. The wooden cabinets were obvious but
working on them wouldn’t free up any space. I moved some of the
accessible crates to take a cursory peek in some of the ones stacked
against the wall. Their contents appeared to be disposable so decided
we’d tackle that. Returning to my desk I set a goal of creating at least
an open space of about six feet. I felt by doing that I could show Hobie we
were continuing to make progress. Onward!(106)
To be continued…
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