Friday, August 19, 2011

The Beginning

I was lucky enough to grow up in the era of some of the greatest muscle cars ever to roll off the assembly lines of America's auto manufacturers. My only problem was, I was too poor to afford any of them.
My family was living in Amory (pronounced aim-o-ree), a small town in northeastern Mississippi. Amory is about 35 miles southeast of Tupelo (pronounced two-puh-low) the well known birthplace of the king of rock-n-roll, Elvis Presley.
My father bought me my first car, when I was 15. He had a choice between a 55 Chevy, two door sedan, with a cammed up 327, and a four door 65 Falcon, with an anemic 6 banger.
Yep, you guessed it. I ended up with the Falcon. Over the next few months I learned to hone my natural mechanical aptitude.
Spending every last cent I made at my part time job, replacing things like starters, alternators, transmission (did I mention the car was a three on the tree?), clutch assembly, etc, etc, etc. When not forced to spend my money on absolutely necessary mechanical parts in order to keep the wheels turning, or $.25 a gallon gasoline, I spent it on things like Firestone Wide Ovals (tm),  mounted on a pair of slightly rusty chrome reverse wheels, which in turn necessitated that I spend money the next week to buy a set of extended shackles. After installing the shackles and the Wide Ovals (tm), I soon found out about things like over and under steer, and the importance of correct front end alignment.
I also spent money on the creature comforts, which at that time to me meant an under dash 8-Track tape deck, and the obligatory speakers mounted on top of the rear window package tray. From this experience I learned the importance of correct orientation of the positive and negative connections, and incidentally, about the care needed for third degree burns one receives when bare handedly snatching loose a brightly glowing wire with insulation dripping from it, in order to keep ones car from going up in flames. My father eventually took the car back when I decided I was too smart for school, and dropped out with one month left of the 11th grade. He sold the car for a pentance, and used the money to finance his move to Texas, in a separation from my mother and me and my siblings. Anyway, that's how the whole fascination with cars began... So come back anytime. I am always ready to talk cars.

 My Shelby GT