14,433.RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,284

14,433. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,284

(Small Block Power In a Big Block World)

I've never known much about

anything, and to paraphrase

Mark Twain about memories,

'What I didn't know I made up.'

It works for a long-term mix-up, 

swirling cool things up and then

altering and content. Yet, in my

own personal review, I'm amazed

at how factual I've been : how it's

all been true, and related to my

real-world experiences. I've had

segments of my life, almost by

decades, that so differed from

each other and were so varied.

Some of it here (though, apparently,

I too am running out of time. 

Thanks, Doc), can be laid out

on paper in the most perfect

fashion, and each has its own 

memories that alight from the

page, pick up their instruments,

and strike up the band! The old

1960's meld right into the old

1970's, and with as much fidelity

as Christmas Carols to the stories

they relate. The 1980's and my

'career' days; the 1990's and past,

right into my most noxious Biker

days  -  tales I've hardly yet even

touched. I took a left turn, I took

a right turn, the road that got me

got me to here. 'Nuff said. Not

quite dead. Yet.

-

My first car, I guess it was back

about Winter '69, was a freebie.

Some guy on Avenel Street, at

about #90 or 92, as I recall, had

an old Renault out front with a

note on the windshield for the

junkyard wrecker guy who was

coming to take it away. It was a

cold late January. I used to walk

a lot whenever I was back to

Avenel (I'd tried to compare 

notes, in my head, about how

weird it was when I'd flip-flop

on a weekend, from NYC to

Avenel, to see a girlfriend there;

the enormous differences were

baffling to me, and it got me

into the mental situation of then

thinking of Avenel as a little, 

Dutch, settlement (all those 

pointed duplexes along lower 

Avenel Street resembling, to

me, Holland), whereas, actually,

the big Dutch settlement I was

actually living in, was NYC

itself. Pretty strange; 1640 to

1960, etc. - A real parade!).

-

So, anyway, I stopped at the

guy's house and walked up his

front steps, rang the bell, and 

simply said 'Hey, if you're 

junking that car I'll gladly 

take it.' He said 'Sure, it's yours;

saves me the trouble.' He gave

me the title, and I walked the rest

of the way home (to Inman, at

my weekend-parents' house where

I'd been raised). I forget how, but

I got it to the house later. I tinkered

with it some and, like the guy had

said, it needed a timing gear. Now,

let me explain about old Renaults,

which I think, in French, probably

translates back into 'piece du merde'

or, as we'd probably put it, 'piece

of shit.' Unlike an American car

of those days (this was the Dauphin

and 4CV Renault days), the 'timing

gear' here was just that. Not a chain;

just a fiber-gear that ran, at the very

front of the engine, under a cover,

between the crankshaft and the

valves at top. Chandler Motors, in

Linden, on St. George Ave., was

a 1960's Renault dealer too. They

had the needed part  -  a 12 dollar

fiber gear  -  the one in the car itself

had, because of the fiber, worn down

the gear's teeth. It turned out to be

magically simple, for me, and turned

me immediately (in my own dumb

head) into a 'Master-Mechanic' (of

nothing). Anyway, the car worked,

and I got a solid year and a half out

of it, and probably 10,000 more miles.

-

The two things about the car  -  and I

drove it everywhere, from Nyack to

Saugerties to NYC to Philadelphia  -

(three if you wish to count the 40 miles

per gallon gas), were that 1. It had both

a 'city horn' and a 'country horn,' which

I thought was pretty cool The city horn,

of course, was the loud one, and the

country horn was more of soft and 

gentle purr, signifying a beep. And, 

2. the other thing, which I just lived 

with, was that certain sorts of bumps or

rough road would pop the transmission

out of 3rd gear. (The car had 4). But I

was always aware of that and thus able

to work around it. The little car was a

gem. A little while later, foolishly

(as seemed always my wont) I simply

gave the car in upon the insistence

of an older mechanic friend in Rahway,

Freddie Fox, of Fox's Garage. I probably

should never have listened to him, but

I did. He'd say, 'Why you driving a

little piss-pot like that?' I guess shame

wears a baleful face. He had a 1957

Jaguar to sell for some lady undergoing

a massive divorce and hating her

husband and wishing to sell-out

everything he owned out from under 

him, including his Jaguar. Which I 

got for 300 bucks, needing an

exhaust system (it had been sitting),

which Freddie gleefully not just

replaced, but fabricated for me,

chrome tips and all, for another

60 bucks. I was suddenly living

large, in the 12mpg car department

anyway. One day I raced a Volvo

sports car (a P1800, it was, 60's

era), all the way up from Sea Brite,

NJ. It was some sort of challenge

that the guy's girlfriend had in her

eyes at the bar. (I probably should

have wagered for her!). I won,

barely. By the time we got to the

Avenel Fire House light, both cars

were cranking with fury. I had

cracked a cool 103mph on my

speedo, and the Volvo was right

next to me the whole way. At the

firehouse they continued straight,

(northward), and I turned right

for Avenel Street like Parnelli

Jones (an old-time racer) waddling

home. Never saw them again. My

two friends, in the Jag with me, I

noticed, were busy cleaning up

their own poop.