'Run
With It, Baby' by M.L.Newell
"Jimbo," I said, "if you don't sell my car I want to
run it in a Demolition Derby."
"I can arrange that," he told me.
This has been a dream for thirty years and when Jimbo
said he could set it up I prayed my Pontiac would not
sell.
For seventeen years I had that GTO and when I get out
there I want my name painted in big letters on both
sides: MARY LOU.
Dreams of denting fenders, smashing, ramming, ran
wild.
Tires off and rolling away across the track.
I'm out there and running, feeling good. Only one more
Chevy to bash and here it comes. Almost over for you,
whack it in the rear to kingdom come.
And
the winner is...
But
the car sold in three days.
'The
Mint Condition Pontiac' by Robin
Reid
My mother-in-law was a generous, warm woman.
Accordingly, I had no inkling what would be coming
when she gave me a near mint condition, low mileage,
straight-eight, two-door l951 Pontiac Indian Chief
classic automobile for Christmas.
The
plan, like all good plans, was simple. We lived in
Dallas, Texas. The car rested in her driveway in
Woodburn, Oregon, 3000 miles away. We'd fly up and
drive back, our dove gray and silver Pontiac gliding
smoothly through the scenic grandeur of the Old
West.
We
arrived at my mother-in-law's home. The Pontiac was
captivating, the product of a more sedate time. We
marveled at the trunk. Our three large suitcases could
go in vertically. The effect of the outsize steering
wheel, larger than the road wheels on most small cars
today and set in a near upright position, combined
with the chair-high mohair front seat, dictated a
posture that said the driver had truly
arrived.
A
couple of days before Memorial Day, wrapped in a
cocoon of the l950's and beguiled by the spring
sunshine, we beat our way through the back streets of
Woodburn. By the time we reached Bend, Oregon, a
sleepy little town on the edge of the great American
desert that stretches to the Sonora in Mexico, the
droning blown muffler could no longer be ignored. The
local muffler repairman climbed out of the grease pit
and said, "They sure don't make them like that
anymore. It's not the muffler. It's the header pipe.
made special for the car." Header pipe for a l951
Pontiac? A gnawing uncertainty flamed up in my
gut.
"No
problem," the mechanic informed me. He had old car
specifications and he'd fabricate one. It would be
ready the next day.
Well
that's not too bad, I thought.
The
next day the silent Pontiac glided out of Bend. It
began to rain. A curious new development: the
vacuum-operated windshield wipers would slow each time
I accelerated. Mountains of eastern Oregon announced
the beginning of the Old West. The first easy grade
slid beneath our wheels as the straight-eight gobbled
up the two-lane blacktop. The next grade a little
steeper, the next steeper still. Then the Pontiac's
engine began to falter. The higher we went, the slower
we went until on the steepest climb the car slowed to
thirty, then twenty miles an hour. As the car began to
die, the front end would dive toward the pavement,
catch itself and roar into life, to die again, front
end diving, catch itself and roar into life, bucking
its way rhythmically at twenty miles an hour over the
first of the mountains. The windshield wipers swept
back and forth madly.
That
night in Boise, my wife and I discussed the options.
It was too early to call my mother-in-law to come get
her car.
The
next day, sunny and clear. I idly crouched down to
inspect the car's underside. The right front tire was
wet. Hydraulic fluid? Brakes. Let's see if I've got
this right... one bucking l951 Pontiac with brake
fluid draining out, Memorial weekend and record high
temperatures predicted.
To
the telephone book. All the auto dealers were closed
on Saturday. I flitted through the yellow pages,
trying to get up the courage
to
torch the Pontiac and fly home. Automobile
Restorations.
At
8:30 a.m. I spoke to the owner of the shop, still in
bed. "Come ahead," he said. His business was on the
edge of Mountain Home, some thirty miles east. When we
arrived at a junk yard filled with old cars, the owner
walked once around the Pontiac, cleaned out his wooden
garage, and we moved the car in. The morning mugginess
burned away while we waited in the shade, drinking
lemonade his wife brought. A couple of hours later, he
reappeared. "Well, the fuel pump is shot and the
master and wheel cylinders need to be
repaired."
We
stood in silence. I anticipated weeks waiting for
parts delivery. Purely as a formality, I asked, "Can
you fix it?" A simple "Yes." He specialized in
restoring older GM automobiles. He had six straight
eight Pontiacs in his junkyard. Currently he repaired
and sold fuel pumps for '50's GMs and had a
refurbished straight eight pump resting on his shelf.
The brake cylinders would have to be rehoned, he
continued, but a friend owed him some favors. He was
sure he could get the friend to open up and hone the
cylinders. Working from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in l00
plus degree heat, they pulled the Pontiac
together.
He
handed me the bill. I had been tabulating: double time
for holidays, antique car parts, a friend called out
to work on a national holiday. "Ninety-nine dollars,
including parts," he said.
"Including
parts?" Surely that couldn't be right, the fuel pump
alone was thirty-nine, plus the brake parts. A moment
of silence before I asked what I had never asked an
auto mechanic before, "Don't you want more?" I argued
that six or seven hours in the heat on a holiday
weekend, well, it just seemed like he should have
more. "Nope."
As
we drove across the Idaho desert and the sun began to
set, I contemplated fate and luck, never as bemused
about life's whims as I was that night. I switched on
the headlights, the clock on the dash began to tick,
the radio played big band music. We hummed along the
desert blacktop, the translucent hood ornament of
Chief Pontiac lighted up.
'Crab
Heist Advice' by Edith
Schwartz
'Thieves Nab Crabs.' That was the headline. As I read
the news story my admiration for the crooks rose to
new heights. Not their ethics - their ability to plot
and execute such a clever enterprise.
How
would you plan a heist like this? It takes deep
careful scheming and artful machinations. First you
corrupt someone who works at the seafood plant,
someone with a key to the building who can drive the
factory forklift. That means you hang out at the same
tavern as the plant workers. You find your guy and
zero in.
Then
you need to rent a truck with a cooler that will hold
twenty 50-pound boxes of crabs. Will regular tires
support that much weight? How will you get rid of the
smell before you take the truck back? Who can give you
the answers without becoming suspicious? No matter how
clever you are it's hard to work these questions into
a normal conversation.
Then
there's the qustion that always pops up. What will you
wear? This is no silk stocking event. You're going to
spend some time in the cooler, the one at the seafood
plant, so boots would be best plus a warm jacket,
winter cap and heavy gloves. The last just in case an
orange claw bursts out and grabs you when you're
moving the the crab crates. This may not happen but
when planning somehing of this sort you must consider
the worst case scenerio.
When
it was reported that the crabs were missing from the
plant, the police alerted everyone along the coast.
Knowing this would happen, what would you do with all
those crabs? It is imperative that before the robbery,
you find a dishonest wholesaler and a seafood
fence.
The
paper said the crabs were worth $3500 but your
wholesaler wouldn't pay that much and the money has to
be divided among the seafood plant worker, the truck
driver, and the lookout who watched for the police at
the time of the heist.
There's
the cost of the truck rental and the
gas...
