MAKING PROGRESS… of sorts (Part 172g)
I don’t remember the exact
words I spoke but they were to get everybody on “the same page’. It was
along the lines of “Is it a go or not?” Cliffy picked up on it and sort
of repeated it. Dick spoke up with a bit of hesitation but answered
“Yes…”. That left Alan (Buster didn’t count at this point) and I had
some doubt about his willingness before he finally nodded in a positive
manner. From my conversation with Neil I knew it was going to be
‘process’ moving forward and passed on some of the things he’d told me.
As I had mentioned, Cliffy had done some research during the day and one
of the things he did was to contact the parts manager of the local
Chevrolet dealer. He backed up what I’d been told about parts
availability for the 427ci Chevy engine and that it would probably take
two to three weeks to finally have a finished engine. I pretty much
became a listener until Cliffy turned to me and said he needed to talk
with Neil to see how to proceed. The way we left it that night was that
I told him I’d call Neil and let him know when I did and then he go on
from there.
Back in part 172e I gave you a hint of what was to
come. I’m not going to go over the trials and tribulations of not only
the collection of all the parts for the engine but of putting it
together. I made the call to Neil the day before Memorial Day and we
finally started the brand new motor for the first time the fourth week
of June. You do the math. There were fights, arguments and a lot of
doubts expressed during this time. The only detail I’ll go into on the
motor had to do with the cylinder heads. In part 172e I mentioned that
General Motors had been slowly creating more high performance options.
One of them was to introduce aluminum cylinder heads. It wasn’t to
increase power but was to reduce the weight of the motor. In racing,
weight is a major factor. The less the car weigh the more efficient the
power becomes. If you’ve been reading this for a period of time you
might remember a part time pit crew member, Robob. He’s the one who
arranged for us to have free racing oil the previous season. I arrived
at the shop one night to find him there with the other guys gathered
around him. I got there to hear him say that he could get us a set of
the aluminum heads but the only catch to it was someone would have to go
to Buffalo, NY, to get them. Not wanting to ‘break the spell’ that
Robob had over the group I didn’t ask for any details… like how much
they would cost and, to this day I still don’t have the details of how
that all came about. The most important thing for our team ended up
being that we never had to pay for them. I guess you could say it was a
case of ‘hear no evil and speak no evil’. To actually get the heads I
was able to get my friend “Big B” to pick them up for us. He was an
over the road salesman who actually covered as far West as Buffalo. In
the end, getting those heads saved us the amount of money it looked like
we’d be short. The only other thing I found out about them was that
they came from Canada. Now back to the real world outside of racing…
When
Elle was still lethargic the next morning I told her to go to her
doctor. With the parade and party the next day she wasn’t in any shape
to handle either. I wasn’t worried about the parade. It was Jean’s party
that concerned me. One of those concerns was the magician who was
coming from the city to perform. I really hadn’t given much thought to
the fact that he was arriving on the noon train other than I’d have to
go pick him up. But, lying in bed that morning while waiting for the
alarm it suddenly came to me… how was he going to get back to the city
since the last train left around 2pm. It was too late to make any change
so I put the thought behind me and headed for work.
Truthfully,
after talking with Neil and Cliffy that morning, most of my thoughts for
the rest of the day were about the race car. One interesting thing that
transpired that day was in getting an apology from Bert, the president,
about the way I’d been treated by some of the Trustees prior to the
Mortgage committee meeting the previous day. It was appreciated but left
me wondering how some of the day to day business of the bank was being
communicated to the Trustees. I didn’t dwell on it though. Being a three
day weekend I made the decision to let all the first floor staff leave
as soon as the tellers were ‘in proof’ with all their cash counted and
accounted for. That got them out a little after 4pm. I’d waited to call
Cliffy until then to find out how things went with Neil. He was
non-committal but said “Things were in the works”. I felt good that I
was no longer the ‘lead’ on the project and that Cliffy had it. The next
call was to Elle and was told that the doctor said that her malady had
to do with her anemia and gave her a shot of something or other. That
made me feel a lot better. When I told her I was on the way home I could
actually hear her voice get a little life to it, a good sign. During
supper we got a call from my mother to say she didn’t feel up to it to
attend Jean’s party the next day. She asked if we could drive to the
house so she could explain to Jean about her ’shopping spree’ birthday
present feeling she couldn’t do it justice over the phone. When Elle
told me I rolled my eyes and when I did she reminded me that she was my
mother. Although it screwed up a perfectly good evening we did as she
requested and, in leaving, knew it had been the right thing to do.
When
we woke up Memorial Day morning (also Jean’s birthday) we were greeted
with a cool, overcast day, not really a good one for a parade. We had
some small presents for Jean to open at breakfast. Elle was to be at the
staging area for the parade at 9:30am and when I went out to load the
station wagon with the big 4H banner for her group found it was raining
lightly. We hadn’t checked with my father (the amateur weather man) when
we were at the house the night before and was sorry we hadn’t. I called
him and was told it would get worse as the morning wore on. Elle had to
make the decision to participate or not and called the other two
mothers to get a consensus. It was a unanimous “no” which was OK by Elle
giving her more time to get ready for the birthday party. While helping
her I pressed her on more information on the magician. She’d gotten his
name from Phyllis when participating in the PTA play but other than a
good recommendation from her, had nothing more on him.
The
birthday party was scheduled for 1:30 pm and he was to arrive on the
noon train. As I waited for it to arrive I wondered what he was to do
with himself until it was time for him to perform. It took a few minutes
to figure out just who I was to pick up but a small black trunk gave me
a hint. Walking up to the man I saw a tall woman with dyed blond hair
and too much make-up standing near him. When I identified myself he
introduced her as his assistant. Another surprise! I pointed to the
station wagon and sort of followed them towards it. For some reason, in
my mind they just didn’t go together. The man insisted the woman sit in
front and as I watched her get in I had my eyes glued to the seat. She
sat down with both feet still on the ground before swiveling her bottom
to lift her legs, one at a time, into the vehicle. It was a totally
unexpected treat.
To be continued…
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