Steve

Steve... How to explain this? ... You know that little voice inside your head that warns you when we are about to do something stupid that may get you maimed or killed? The one that you sometimes ignore but it's always there? ... Steve was apparently born without that little voice. That's the only possible explanation for some of what he did.

Like when he tried to catch a rattlesnake with his bare hands. It was huge - sunning itself on the road near the elementary school. He took off his shirt and was waving it in front of the snake. The idea was to grab it behind the head when it struck. He tried numerous times but couldn't quite get hold of it. The snake finally got tired of playing and headed off into the brush...

Or borrowing a friend's Honda 750 street motorcycle and taking it off road - including jumps and hill climbs... Or firing a shotgun straight up in the air in a herd of cows to see if they'd stampede when the pellets started coming down and hitting them... Or shouting obscenities at total strangers to try and start fights... Not to mention the things he did to cars - they rarely lasted more than 6 months in his possession...

Yeah - he was the kind of idiot who would notice some old folks sitting on their front porch, drive up onto their lawn and start spinning cookies just to see the expressions on their faces... Never a dull moment :-)

Steve was probably the best baseball player in the area. His batting average was around .500 and it seemed like he hit more home runs than singles... I think he was that good because he didn't care - baseball wasn't his thing :-)

He also had a way (his way?) with the girls :-) And again, I think it was because he really didn't care. (He figured they were like streetcars. It's no big deal if you miss one - there will be another one along in a few minutes.) I remember that he used to cruise the junior high school. He was 16 at the time - I thought that was a bit creepy... He said it was because teenyboppers were easier to impress than high school girls. Then he mimicked a teenybopper being impressed with him - it was pretty funny :-)

BTW: I once asked Steve if it was possible to determine how far a girl was willing to go without offending her. His answer was stunningly simple and quite brilliant. I won't disclose what he said because I feel like I would be doing a disservice to society... And, just for the record, I never did try it :-)

And I guess this is where I tell my favorite Steve story:

It was in the fall of 1971, after Mom, Karina and I moved from Argyle to 1819 Mohican Street in Denton, Texas. (Yes - I'm getting ahead of myself again.) ... And you might want to bring up a map for this one :-)

It all started around 11PM... Steve and I plus a couple of other guys (not Sam and Royce) had been out running around in Steve's "hotrod" Volkswagen Beetle and he was heading back to my house to drop me off before returning to Argyle.
Steve turned north on Shawnee off of Mingo, then right onto Creek and left onto Nevada. That's when he noticed a teenager on a dirt bike talking to some friends in the Inca Road cul-de-sac. So Steve stopped the car, rolled down his window and (quite loudly) expressed the opinion that the young man was a f*ing c*sucker...
Yeah - that didn't go over very well... We spent the next 5 to 10 minutes driving random patterns through the neighborhood at speeds up to 50 MPH - sliding sideways through the turns with the dirt bike right on our tail. It was absolutely insane... Finally, Steve took the left onto Cherokee so fast the the dirt bike wiped out.

Our relief at having shaken our pursuer was short-lived because just around the next bend (Cherokee onto Boyd) there was a Texas Highway Patrol car sideways in the road... It was a sight I will never forget: The patrolman standing in front of the car, wearing a smokey hat and holding a shotgun - dressed in his PJs, bathrobe and slippers... (Apparently we woke him up.)

As Steve got out of the car to confer with the officer (hoping that would reduce the chance of a search) he whispered "Hide the bayonet!!!"... Yes - there was a WWII bayonet in the back seat of the car. I had no idea why - I never asked :-)

Unfortunately, none of us had any clue how one goes about hiding a 16 inch long bayonet in the back seat of a Volkswagen. And that's when the guy next to me said one of the dumbest things anyone has ever said to me: "Pete - shove it up your pant leg!!" ... Uh - yeah... I'd much rather go to jail than try and hide a razor sharp bayonet in any part of my clothing. But thanks for playing :-) ... We just stashed it against the seat bottom and hoped for the best.

If you knew Steve you wouldn't be the least bit surprised that the car wasn't searched and that he got off with a ticket... He could "play innocent" as well as anyone I've ever known. He was like: "Thank goodness you showed up! We were just minding our own business when that kid started chasing us! We were scared for our lives!" ... Of course, it didn't hurt that there had been numerous prior incidents in the neighborhood involving the dirt bike rider.

It was just one of many times I "dodged a bullet" in Steve's company... My life (as a whole) would have been a lot duller had I never known him :-)

The Guys

During the time I spent in Argyle, Texas in 1971 I hung out with a number of guys from time to time (including a few from the trailer park). But the "big three" were Sam, Royce and Steve - all members of "The Chosen Few".

I'll start with Sam:

As I mentioned before, Sam was a Methodist - hence the Argyle Baptist church wasn't his principal place of worship - but he did spend a lot of time there... Sam was one of those "different drummer" types of people. He came across as mellow and laid back - but I think he just kept the turmoil hidden below the surface. He was also very quiet - never said much of anything unless he had something important to say... Still - his presence was comforting... There were times I pretty much talked his ear off. I suspect he was wishing he was someplace (anyplace) else, but he always listened. And even though his (rare) remarks were usually simple and obvious they were exactly what I needed to hear :-)

Next, there was Royce:

Royce was a big guy - he ended up going to North Texas on a football scholarship (offensive lineman). But despite his size he was amazingly agile. We used to go bowling a lot and Royce had the smoothest approach I've ever seen - downright unnatural for someone his size. He was so light on his feet and the ball was laid down so precisely that the first sound you heard was the explosion of the ball hitting the pins. The velocity on the ball was incredible - it seemed implausible given how controlled his approach was. It was almost disorienting to watch :-)

There were times I felt sorry for Royce because everybody took their problems to him - he was that kind of guy... At that time he was planning on becoming a minister but ended up as some sort of financial planner instead... I guess it's sort of the same thing - depends on how you look at it :-)

My most vivid memory of Royce involves a somewhat disturbing incident. I hesitate to tell the story but I will anyway:
For those who grew up in rural areas the term "rat race" refers to an activity you have to be seriously bored to engage in... Basically - everyone gets in their car, one guy takes off as fast as he can and the rest try and keep up with him (single file). The "game" can go on for hours (changing leaders periodically) and as near as I can tell the sole objective is to not end up like the police cars in the chase scene from "The Blues Brothers"... I only remember there being one rule: No "bat turns" :-)
FYI: "Bat turn" refers to the tight U-turns the Batmobile used to make on the TV show... Since none of us possessed jet-powered vehicles we had to approximate the maneuver by locking up the back tires with the parking brake while cranking on the steering wheel. And that's not a particularly smart thing to do when a bunch of guys are chasing you at a high rate of speed :-)

Anyway, one Saturday night a group of us were heading westbound on Crawford Road when Steve (I think) hit an armadillo and we all came to a screeching halt. The poor critter was seriously wounded but still alive and the consensus was that it we couldn't (in good conscience) leave it to die a slow and painful death by the side of the road... Now - the obvious solution would have been to shoot it, but for some bizarre and inexplicable reason nobody had a gun in their car. (Seriously - that kind of thing just doesn't happen in rural Texas.) All we could come up with was a baseball bat. (And now you know where this is headed.)
We still had to decide who would put the unfortunate victim out of its misery - and nobody wanted to do it... After a bit of back and forth Royce finally relented. It made a lot of sense - he was by far the biggest and strongest so we figured one quick blow would suffice. But he was also by far the most gentle and kind-hearted - a cruel irony indeed...
So - as it turns out, armadillos are not that easy to kill (what with the armor plating and all)... I can still see Royce standing there (in the glare of our headlights) - with tears in his eyes - clubbing the poor thing. It was traumatic for all of us - especially Royce... But the point of the story is that he was the guy you could always count on...

Aside: What struck me as odd about the incident was that Steve was totally into hunting - he would shoot darn near anything that moved without any qualms whatsoever... But the though of hitting an injured animal with a baseball bat was just too distressing for him? Yeah - I don't get it...

Another aside while I'm on the hunting topic:
This one time Steve and I plus another kid (I think it was Phillip) decided to go duck hunting... Actually - they decided and I just went along because I was bored :-) Despite my protestations Steve handed me a loaded 12 gauge shotgun, and as we were creeping through the brush next to a pond a huge flock of ducks flew over our heads. I raised the gun but didn't fire, and Steve and Phillip both missed...
When Steve asked me what the #$%#$ happened I said that the ducks were moving so fast I couldn't pick a target, but the truth was there were just so freaking many of them I was afraid I might accidentally hit one :-)

I have not yet talked about Steve (who later became my surrogate brother). But he is going to be rather challenging to explain so I think I'll leave him for another post... And trust me - this will all make sense eventually :-)

The Tools

In my prior post I said I was going to starting describing the "cast of characters" in Argyle... Yeah - those are not the "tools" I'm referring to in the title :-) ... I've decided to write about a different topic near and dear to my heart:

In the 4th drawer down in the top section of the roll-around toolbox in my shop you'll find a small red metal box (it currently contains some taps and dies). And if you poke around some more in the various drawers you'll find a ratchet and sockets that say "Husky" on them and some box/open wrenches that are marked "Proto Challenger"... The "Husky" tools originally came in that red box and I bought them together with the Proto wrenches shortly after we moved to Argyle. They were my very first mechanic's tools...

I still remember the day I got them. I took them out and examined them... Held them in my hands - felt the heft and the balance - caressed the cold steel... They represented something that I had always longed for but had never possessed. The power to restore life to the broken and discarded... To repair and improve...

Many of those tools have gotten misplaced over the past 40 years but the ones that remain are among my most prized possessions. At some point they have touched almost every vehicle I've ever owned - and many others... Back in the day they were even used to replace the timing chain on a friend's 65 Mustang GT 2+2 fastback with the pony interior and a K-code (high performance) 289 engine... (BTW: I could have bought that car for $300 before I offered to help the owner fix it.)

Throughout my entire adult life working on cars has been my comfort and my refuge - and those particular tools are the glue that binds it all together... So - when I'm dead and gone I hope you remember the significance and don't just toss them out... Well - I guess it doesn't really matter - I won't care :-)

Aside: This topic reminds me of something I started wondering about when I was 12 years old. (The "trigger" was seeing the massive printing press at the Philadelphia Inquirer on a field trip)... Here goes: All of society's machines were made using other machines that were made by other machines, etc, etc - forming an unbroken chain that goes back hundreds of years to the start of the industrial revolution... So - what if all of our machines were destroyed? ... Could we actually recreate the technology? Do we really know how? How long would it take? Would society ever be the same? Would we want it to be the same?
Yeah -those were the kinds of things I contemplated when I wasn't paying attention in class... And rightfully so - they were far more entertaining than whatever the heck the teacher was rambling on about :-)

And back to the story:

Of course, tools are worthless unless you know what to do with them, and that's where serendipity comes in:
Behind the rental house in Argyle was a little shed, and in that shed was a shelf containing a collection of hardbound Chiltons repair manuals covering almost every American vehicle made within the past 20 years...
Yes - I was in heaven! ... I spent countless hours poring over those books - not just learning the repair procedures but figuring out what was (and was not) different from model to model, make to make and from year to year... I quickly began to grasp the underlying principles and philosophies. And once you understand those you can fix anything.

BTW: Here's a picture of the back yard of the house in Argyle:

The Cadillac was mom's company car and the white car was my '63 Fairlane. In the background is the shed with the repair manuals and you can see bits and pieces of the landlord's submarine near the fence...

Next: Having the tools and knowing what to do with them is not the same as being able to do it. That takes practice. Seriously! It's almost painful watching someone use a wrench or a socket for the first time. Here's the problem: The tool is used to apply rotational force to a bolt, and unless the force is oriented correctly relative to the axis of the bolt the tool will slip, possibly rounding the bolt head and almost certainly resulting in a hand injury.
Furthermore - bolts are frequently are at odd angles and are difficult to reach and sometimes you can't even see them -you have to work by feel. Getting the tool correctly aligned and applying the force in just the right manner is a significant challenge, and no matter how good you are the wrench is still going to slip from time to time... Of course, one of Murphy's Corollaries says that whenever a tool slips there will be a sharp metal edge directly in the path of your hand. I refer to it as the "blood sacrifice" and I consider to be a favorable omen :-)

BTW: Another one of Murphy's Corollaries says that any object dropped while working on a car will come to rest under the exact center of the chassis. I have verified this to be true countless times...

You know - as an aspiring young musician I used to regard my hands as delicate instruments... That was before I got those tools. My hands have been accumulating scars ever since. And I still remember when I got most of them :-)
For example, I got the one on my left thumb while pulling the front seat from a Dodge Super Bee in a wrecking yard in Seaside, Oregon during a rainstorm in the late 1990s. It had been flooding and I was lying on my side in almost a foot of water reaching under the car pulling on a wrench when the bolt broke...
And the scar on the left knuckle of my right hand? I was hammering the drive shaft out of a tiller with a mini-sledge back in 1980 when I missed... But I digress...

I have to chuckle when I think back to my early repair attempts - like replacing the muffler on my Fairlane: The book made it sound dead simple. Just few bolts and a couple of clamps... However - the book didn't mention that it would all be rusted together and you pretty much need an oxy-acetylene torch to get it apart... After hours of frustration I threw in the towel and took it to a mechanic :-)

But I never stopped trying and I never stopped learning - and the rest is history... My history :-)