Beale Street White Boy Blues

When I opened the Heartland Express terminal in Olive Branch, I was able to secure the services of one Jason Dart. Jason was a dispatcher in Iowa City and was ready for change. Other than being an excellent dispatcher, Jason was also almost (or may have been) a professional water skier. This is not small feat for someone from Iowa....A state that I consider to be part of the Artic region....how some one can learn to ski....much less get very good at it in a place that only has one warm month out of the year...of course this is from the perspective of someone that has wintered every year in either Mississippi or Tennessee (save for my one winter in Iowa)..down here we might have one, maybe 2 months of cold weather....My last account had Jason working out of a Heartland terminal in Jacksonville, Florida...a much more sensible locale if you are a water skiing enthusiast...If you were looking for a poster boy for your typical corn fed Midwestern boy...Jason is it...Slender...pale...crew cut blond headed white boy. Jason jumped in and helped me get the Olive Branch terminal off to a roaring start. Paul Albers soon followed us from Iowa to round out our staff. We had a big boat of car shipped to us from Iowa City....A Chevy that was at least 15 years past it prime....on weekends I was running back home to Jackson TN...this weekend Paul was rotating back up to Iowa City, so Jason was on his on and hopped into the big Chevy and decided to check out Beale Street in Memphis.....He had no problem in locating Beale street, but cruising down Beale, someone cut him off and he took a side street. A couple of more bad turns and he was suddenly in a less desirably suburb of greater Memphis. Looking up in his rear view mirror, Jason saw the flashing blue lights of one of Memphis' finest. Jason pulled to the curb and big, very large black Memphis cop separated himself from his police cruiser and ambled up to Jason....."Officer, what have I done wrong?" Jason asked. The big black cop said "Well, well, well. Where shall I begin? Out of state plates. White boy behind the wheel. Bad part of town.....White boy...why don't you just follow me outta here?" As CSNY said, "If you want to sing the blues, you got to pay your dues".....but best not to do so on a side street off Beale Street.

Truck Drivers Say the Darndest Things

When we asked a driver why he drove 122 miles out of route after being told the shortest route to his destination, he said he called his wife after hanging up the phone with dispatch and she checked the WeatherChannel and told our driver there "might" be some black ice if he went that way.

"He seemed so interested in how I had been running for the last couple of weeks....I didn't have no idea he was a safety man. My wife has always told me I ought to have my mouth sewed up...and you have a nice day."

You know you might have a problem with a new driver when he keeps sending over messages on the Qualcom that he needs better directions to the nearest Greyhound Bus station.

You know you might have a problem with a driver when he says he "bumped" something. He "might" have "scrubbed" up against something. He had a "ding", "scrape", "dent", "bang", or "bump". If you break out our "Driver Talk to Dispatcher Talk" dictionary..."Ding" means he knocked the fender off. "Dent" means he backed all over 3 parked cars. "Scrape " means he pretty much ripped the whole side out of a new 53 foot trailer. "Bang" means he knocked down the awning of the dock of your best shipper. "Bump" means you need to order a new bumper and hood for his truck.

I can't come into work today. "Some fool has climbed up in a tree in my front yard and hung hisself with a ski rope". Supposedly this fool had been stalking my driver's wife and coming to the realization that his hopes and dreams were not going to work out, he stung hisself up. I told my driver that Halloween was last week...cut him down and come on into work....This excuse served us well in dispatch for 3 months...anytime we had a late delivery, we used the "dead man hanging in my driver's front yard" excuse...worked like a charm.

"It's funny you called just now.....I was just asking my girlfriend as we was drinking coffee...I was wondering what I'm suppose to be doing this Monday morning"....I asked him if it might be the load we talked about Friday that delivers in Birmingham Monday morning...now 2 hours late..
"Yep. Yep...it's all coming back to me now...Thanks Boss".

"Sorry...I can't take this load to Corinth MS. and drop...you've already told me to drop it on the Jackson yard". My bad...I overlooked the tenant that once a dispatch has been given to a driver, it can not be changed...something like you can never un-ring a bell once it has been struck..

"My son can not come into work today....he's not feeling well"....I never have a problem when my drivers that are 12 and 13 years old have their Mom call in and tell me Junior is under the weather and she is not going to let him come out and play....but the day that my 62 years old driver had is 88 year old mother call in and tell me her pup can't answer the bell...oh well..another horizon breached

"You are so wrong!! it more like 65%....!!!!!" I wish I could remember this bum's name...Probably the hardest driver to run off I've ever had. He ran out of our Birmingham terminal and I really tried hard for 2 months to convince this hand he needed to move on. After several service failures in a row I told him he was probably the worst driver I had working for me...I pointed out to him he probably only delivered on time 50% of the time...

"About 30 years". I had a driver pick up a load in McDonough Georgia going to Lawrenceburg TN. He called the next morning and said "they don't want this freight". Curious I inquired why they were refusing the freight. "They say it goes to Wisconsin". I think that's odd and ask what does the paperwork on the load say where the freight is going. "The bills say the freight is going to Wisconsin". My curiosity again aroused I asked him where did the bills say the freight was going yesterday when he signed them.....dead silence...How long have you been driving a truck I asked.
Again, a long silence...."About 30 years"...I asked him in 30 years had he ever looked at the destination city on his paperwork...after another long silence he said "How about I bring the truck back to the Chattanooga terminal and clean it it out?" At least at this point he was able to "read" my mind.

The Kiss of Death....there are several catch phrases recruiters can pick up on to know immedialtely to kick a prospect to the curb. "I'm a runner. I can get er done! I can stay out overnight, but...I can run 24/7 for you...least until the sun goes down. Once I get hired in, when does my advance go on my card.

Favorite CB Handles over the years...my all time favorite belonged to Pete Wall...Feather Merchant. Others are Gearjammer (Harry Azbell). Hawkeye (Buck Mast). Zero (Roger Terry). Redneck (Gary Allen). Scattergun (Jimmy Buckelew). Smokehouse. Big O (O. D. Smith). Amos (Thomas Diffee)

Good questions to as a driver before you put him or her in a truck

How many times have you called in and told your dispatcher your were sick because you had food poisoning from a truck stop you ate at?
1. Once
2. Once in a blue moon.
3. Once in a raccoon’s age
4. Once a week

How many times have you tried to sue a truck stop because of food poisoning?
1. Once
2. Once in a blue moon.
3. Once in a raccoon’s age
4. Next time you stop and eat at a truck stop

How many times have you called your dispatcher and said you were sick because you had a tuna fish sandwich and it tasted funny? (also..if you ordered a tuna fish sandwich and it smells funny, will you eat it anyway?)

1. Once
2. Once a month
3. Once in a raccon’s age
4. Once because the hamburger you ordered looked like a tuna fish sandwich

How many times have you tried to sue a truck stop for serving tuna fish sandwiches that smelled funny?
1. Once
2. Once a month
3. Once in a month of Sundays
4. Never. Because you’ve sued them so many times for food poisoning they won’t serve you fish sandwiches anymore.

How many times have you called in late and said, “Nobody told me it was suppose to be there “first thing?”
1. Once
2. Once a week
3. Once. The day after your dispatcher told you everything needs to deliver “first thing”.


What kind of alarm clock would you buy based on the following advertisment?
1. “Wakes you up everytime!”
2. “Wakes you up once in a blue moon!”
3. “Wakes you up and doubles as a food taster. Never get food poisoning again!”

How many times have you called in to tell dispatch you would be late because a tanker had turned over in front of you?
1. Once
2. Only when you are running late on hot loads
3. If you have ever called dispatch and reported a flipped tanker, do you have a problem with carrying a camera to record the next tanker incident?

Have you ever been late because:
1. you locked your keys up in the truck
2. you locked your keys up in the truck (and your spare key was in the cupholder)
3. you locked your keys up in the truck but you have a spare key in your wallet..but you left your wallet in the truck

How To Tell If The Universe Is Out To Get You

A dispatcher friend of mine during my days with Heartland sent flowers to his girlfriend. It was not a special occasion....it was not nearing Valentine's Day...it was not to celebrate the first time they met or her birthday. He sent flowers for no other reason than to show he loved her and was thinking about her. Now here is where the universe steps in. I don't know if it was the delivery guy or the delivery guy's boss, but the delivery guy takes off to my dispatcher friend's home address, when he can't find the girlfriend at her home. The delivery guy rings the doorbell at my dispatcher friend's house and is soon greeted by my dispatcher friend's wife and hands her the girlfriend's flowers. Now my dispatcher friend earns a meager dispatcher's salary. His wife on the other hand (the lady with the new bouquet of flowers and a curious look on her face as she reads the attached card) is a full fledged doctor lady making big doctor lady money. From all accounts she provides (or provided as the case may be) a handsome income stream to go with his paltry dispatcher pay. I'm not sure if my dispatcher friend was able to explain his way out of this one. Remember, the Universe is always out there and it's always gunning for you....but in the defense of the Universe, this was way to easy and no one can blame the Universe for stepping in on this one.

Random Thoughts Februrary 21st 2009

If you were going to hold a stutter's convention in the United States, where should it be held? Walla Walla, Washington of course.

Buzzard Dead

I was returning back to Jackson the other day, cutting up through the back woods that runs through Somerville and Whiteville and on a particularly long stretch of road I passed by an unusual common occurrence of roadkill. Common, by that I mean in West Tennessee you will see most a kind of roadkill on the roadside. Because of my advancing years I have seen dogs, cats, possums (oh so many possums), deer, and here lately, there have been new editions to the roadway menu and they would be coyotes and armadillos. These latter two emigrated from other parts of the country to get slaughtered on our highways and byways. I have seen a dead fox or two and an occasional owl. But they are rare and uncommon. Could be they are sly and wise and can avoid the death merchants we drive.

I haven’t run over a skunk yet but I’ve been close behind other motorist that have and be it minutes or days after they merged with the black and white varmint, the odor is distinct and definitely lingers. I’ve seen rats run across the roadway but have never quite closed in on one to flatten it. Being a trucking dispatcher I have drivers that have reported some unusual roadkill incidents. I’ve had a driver that managed to hit a cow while going down the interstate. Another ran over a horse in Louisiana late one night. The young man that had stolen Trigger managed to jump off seconds before my driver ended any dreams this potential Seabisquit had dancing through it’s equine head. I had another driver that managed to knock off a black bear as he came out of the West Virginia Mountains. Being as he was half Cherokee I accused him of going across three lanes to nail the lumbering brute. As it cost him around $8,000.00 to a truck that he owned I accepted that assertion that the bear was at fault. I had a driver recently hit two deer in the same night at two different locations. That’s got to be a record. I had another driver claim to hit a deer but my safety department begged to differ unless the deer was wearing one of those purple safety helmets, judging from the paint markings left on the truck’s fender.
The particular roadkill this day was one of our feathered friends. I’ve seen birds that have gotten up close and personal with vehicles of every make and model and those fowl range from redbirds and bluejays to hawks and owls. I’ve seen doves that have been victims of hit and runs. I’m not sure if I’ve seen a covey of quail that’s been flattened by a covertte but I can see that happen before I believe what I just passed must have occurred. There was the usual large greasy spot on the road but arranged around it was a bunch of particularly large black feathers. This looked to be buzzard feathers. I’ve seen many buzzards in my lifetime. Mostly in the sky circling. Patiently circling from now until forever. A poster from my formative years in college was that of two buzzards on a limb with one saying to the other, “Patience my ass, I’m going to kill something!”. I’ve seen buzzards circling high in the sky and feel that they must have some sort of communications network going on. The way I see it would be one buzzard lands on a fresh roadkill and starts into his grisly duties. His ear piece crackles as voice says “Zeke, I got a 87 Nissan maxima headed your way. Three clicks out, eastbound at 60 mph. ETA to your position two minutes”. Zeke answers “Copy that. Stripping out the tenderloin now. Wrapping up in less than one minute. I don’t know who came up with this idea, but putting these possums inside the protective shells is sheer geniuses. I gotta cousin in Texas that was telling me about it but I would never have believed it until I seen it up close. Hell, this baby hasn’t been hit maybe two, three times. Still in great shape. You take a regular possum and this baby would be mush by now. Hell, you might as well knock over a Piggly Wiggly and grab a couple of cans of ham spread”.
I’ve seen buzzards leaving the remains of roadkill but only at a distance. They are very cautious, bordering on paranoia as they fly off or fly up into a nearby tree as they wait for me to pass and so they return to their cleanup. I’ve seen them hobble off to the side of the road as I approached, knowing I’ not going to swerve over on the shoulder to try to take them out. They give you a malevolent glare as you pass and then they waddle back to their work. But this time a buzzard let down his guard and stayed just a little too long and got nailed. I’m guessing it must have been two good old boys in a pickup truck, probably sporting a lost cause flag on the bumper. The scenario as I would imagine it would be as follows. These two bubbas would be returning from an early morning deer hunt with their two four-wheelers loaded up on a trailer. The bubba in the passenger seat is dozing. The driver perks up as he hits a long streatch of road. Bearing down on a buzzard intently working on the carcass of yet unidentified piece of roadkill he closes in and punches his buddy on the shoulder. “Joe Bob, wake up. Tell me I’m not dreaming. You see what I see?”
Joe Bob looks up and is instantly awake. “Jeepers Jim Bob. That’s a buzzard. And he ain’t lookin!”
Jim Bob kicks his pickup into passing gear and with a nervous voice that kicks up a couple of octaves says “I’m going for it!”
Joe Bob turns his ball cap around backwards and white knuckled places both hands on the dash. Criminey, I never knowed nobody that run down a buzzard before”.
Jim Bob snorts. “Hell Joe Bob, nobody in my family ever hit one and we come over on the Mayflower”. A few seconds later and splat, the deed is done. I know this couldn’t have been a buzzard that was raised up in Tennessee or the surrounding states that border us. Local buzzards would know better than to tary long on any roadway in West Tennessee. I know buzzards have keen eyesight and they would have been schooled from an early age to look out for the many pickup trucks out there with the tiny possum, raccoon, etc. figures that are painted on the sides of said pick up trucks keeping up with the roadkills scored over the months and years. No doubt this was probably a buzzard that had relocated south from some northern or eastern state and had read one too many press clippings about how wildlife was to be respected and protected at all cost. Perhaps in the state they had previously departed, they had experienced a driver or two that has braked for them or even stopped and waited from to finish up their main course and then order dessert before they lazily lifted off and returned to the sky. Not today.

NINE POUND BASS

Today, my father, Roy Sr. hooked a nine pound bass. It was another perfect weekend day with a light breeze. It would be a warm day heading towards really warm and then turning really hot towards the middle of the afternoon. It was not unlike a couple of hundred other days I spent with my father as he watched over two or three poles or fishing rods on various lakes, reservoirs, and rivers in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee. We fished at times when the temperature had been much cooler, early springs and late falls...times when the wind blew and the rains came. But most times, more so in the last two and half decades, the times that I had gone with him, my father had picked a day like this one. I said I had accompanied him a couple of hundred times. It’s was probably many more times than that. In my childhood, I fished with my father and my two brothers, and on many occasions, my mother went with us. My middle brother always seemed to have the most patience while my younger brother seemed to have the least interest. I think I was the most enthusiastic, as long as the fish were biting. My younger brother logged many more fishing trips with my father than I did once we left the family nest, as he seems to find many less excuses than I did as to why he couldn't get away to meet my father for a fish outing.
It was not unusual for my father to catch bass. Supposedly, each trip started out with the intention to catch crappie, or as we called them when we lived in Mississippi, white perch. But being equal opportunity anglers, my family, my mother included, had been willing to boat most anything that will bite a minnow or the occasional jig. That includes crappie, catfish, bream (if they have a big enough mouth), sauger, and bass. I remember once in our bank fishing days my mother landed an odd combination of aquatic critters. My mother’s bank fishing style was to give the pole a good stiff pull once she had determined that a fish had attacked her bait. This stiff pull would jerk the fish out of the water and have the fish fly over her head and land behind her where we would disengage said fish. This one particular time, a fish struck her bait and as she was performing her unusual retrieval method, a fair sized snake grabbed hold of the aforementioned aquatican. Both bait stealer and bait stealer ambusher flew out of the water and over my mother’s head and landed behind her, much to our amazement, as well as the other twenty or so bank fishermen flanked on either side of us. Memory fails me but I am pretty sure that neither fish nor snake survived the encounter and neither made it in to cooler with the rest of the fish for the ride home.
My father had a progression of boats that began in my early youth starting out with a small boat with a small motor. Over the years the boats changed and each progression usually had been a step forward in the evolution of my father’s fishing history. The one regression would be the nasty incident we had with a so-called “ski boat” we bought from one of the in laws. Over a fifty year span he refined the kind of craft that most suited his approach to angling. That some people have described it as looking like a large spider sitting on the water with so many poles sticking out from various angles never deterred his approach to fishing. Each spot in the boat had a certain and specific purpose as to what goes where. Batteries went here. The trolling motor laid here while in transit and then was fixed to this spot before launching. Minnow buckets, be there one, two or three of them depending on the number of occupants for the outing went just so. The cooler and the extra seat had certain places where they reside. My father was not fastidious in this approach, but over the years he placed them in certain areas, and we, his loyal followers, knew those spots. There are certain other items that were stored about the boat and no fishing trip would be complete without them. The obvious accompaniments included fish baskets, life vests, minnow and big fish dip nets, tackle boxes and such. Other accessories that a fishing connoisseur with fifty or so years of fishing under his belt packed with him were as follows. He stored in various compartments and side pockets in the boat ropes, several wipe rags to remove the fish slim from boating twenty or so fish (per person). Also you woud find suntan lotion as most outings lasted well into the afternoon, another lotion to remove the smell of the previous lotion, flyswatters, unsalted peanuts, peanut butter crackers, and several other things that escape me at this moment.
When my brothers and I fished with my father during our youth, we could pretty much hold our own. By that I mean we could catch enough fish to keep our interest and if our father was catching fish, we were catching our share also. I can’t say that has held true as my fishing trips have become less frequent and my father continues to keep his skills honed to a fine edge as he fishes whenever the opportunity presents itself. My parent’s yearly journeys to Arizona during the late fall and winter months greatly cut down on his winter fishing. The upside of that was he did not have to break up the ice with a boat paddle to launch the boat. I recall him telling me about the time he only had to bust up ice for about 30 minutes before he go to the area that an even more enthusiastic angler had opened up a channel with a chainsaw. Daddy had said with only a little touch of disgust that it was probably a duck hunter. I took it that a real fishing purist would have stuck with a boat paddle to bust the ice. There have been some times that my son and myself have been able to get and away and accompany him. My father seldom missed a chance to hook a fish and pass it to my son to land it and place it into the fish basket. It has been rare that I had a pole passed to me as unless my father was under attack on three or more poles or rods and he truly needed help in landing some of the fish. This day had been one of my slower days, as it had been several months since I had carved out the time to go fishing with him. Daddy was catching fish right along as my fishing poles stayed quiet. He was not only catching fish right along, but he was boating some pretty nice specimens. I was enjoying the day, the weather, and the company and was only slightly envious of the fish he was hooking. His black pole to the right took a promising dip and my father responded by quickly lifting it from its holder and pulling it briskly upwards. “Stump bass” he pronounced. “Hold this while I back up” and he handed me the pole. After fifty plus years of hooking his share of stump bass as well as most every kind of freshwater fish that lives below the Mason Dixon Line, I’m positive he knew it wasn’t a stump bass (a stump bass being a fixed object on the lake, reservoir or river bottom). His specialty over the last few years has been catching large numbers of sizable catfish, so I think he was thinking he had probably hooked a pretty nice catfish. These cats usually top out at around five or six pounds. Anything above the weight will usually straighten the hook or break the line. Upon taking possession of the pole, I felt the strong pull of a rapidly moving “stump bass”. The pole dipped sharply and the tip reached towards the water as the fish on the other end exerted it’s energy and moved in several different directions at once. What happened over the next five or so minutes was a slow reeling in of line and very gentle handling as the fish fought and seemed sure to escape. My father had reeled in his other lines and unencumbered his sizable dip net to land this large “stump bass”. I have caught a few large cats and although they can fight and pull, their movements are usually slow and deliberate. Even after a five-minute fight as this fish moved nearer the surface, it would still dive and dart and the line would zing through the water. At last the fish broke the surface of the water as I gently reeled in the line, my father slipped the dip net under it and we were both surprised to see a large bass slip into the green strings of the net.
We later weighed the bass and it topped out at just over nine pounds. I took the trophy fish home with all the intentions of having the fish stuffed and mounted on a wall near my desk at work. I was put off by the price tag of nearly $200.00 to have this done and no doubt will regret down the road that I didn’t shell out the money. But in reflection, I perhaps have this trophy mounted in a better place. As I pass through the rooms that house my most cherished memories and display what accomplishments I have achieved, one of the things I am most proud of, there in the my “trophy room” is where this nine pound bass is most prominently displayed. This “trophy room” can be found within the chambers of my heart.
Roy Mabry Jr.
June 16, 2002

BRAND NEW WIPER BLADES

Is there anything in this world better than a brand new set of wiper blades. The only thing I can think of would be when the little man behind the parts store counter trots out to the parking lot, pulls your old blades off, brings them inside, measures them, picks out the new blades, trots back out to the parking lot and installs them. That would save me the trouble of trying to put them on myself. Also the trouble of having to drive back to the parts place after I got home and found that I had picked out the wrong blades due to some size differential or having the wiper blades that have to have the clips versus the kind that don’t. All this despite the fact that I had measured carefully and had addressed the clip versus non-clip issue before I entered the parts store. And what a change that next rain shower. One swipe and everything is crystal clear. Clear as when I was 20 years old and I knew everything and everything was either black or white, no shades of gray; right or wrong, no hint of anything anywhere in between. One swipe of my new wiper blades and my field of vision is now perfect, good enough now to go back to playing dollar poker. The dollar poker I was forced to give up as I became older, because although I could read the other fellers serial number on his dollar bill, I couldn’t read my own because my arms weren’t long enough. The fellers I played dollar poker with weren’t the types that I could trust to read it for me, much less hold it at a sufficient distance for me to read. Not those five or six swipes of my wiper blades a few days ago that didn’t clear my windshield and left me with so many choices. Is that truck up ahead slowing down or turning left, or both; can I straddle whatever that is up in the road or is it still moving, or both? So many shades of gray, so many choices of right or wrong or varying degrees that fall between that I see now that I am zeroing on fifty years old.
The only thing that could be better in this world than new wiper blades and someone putting the correct ones on, would be getting the new wiper blades when I exchanged a set of eight spark plugs that my teenage son had asked me to pick up for him. These sparkplugs were to replace the ones that had mysteriously gone bad in his hot rod. I obtained an oral agreement that I would be reimbursed with cold hard cash, or if not cold hard cash, he would perform some task or tasks around the house. Barring that, some time and attention would be paid to one or all of the automobiles around our house, whether it would be to the exterior or somewhere beneath the hood. The chances of my seeing results from either of these contractual obligations were roughly the same as placing some monetary denominations up the rear end of an overweight barnyard animal (if you are not from around West Tennessee and the previous sentence has you confused, you can email me at rpm@eplus.net and I will elaborate). So it was to my delight and not unexpectedly so that I was informed that I had come home with the wrong spark plugs, despite the fact that I had written down carefully the information I was given as to brand, size of motor and the actual spark plug type. Such is my luck with shopping both for my teenage son and my wife. I still say that an 85% accuracy rating of coming home with what I was sent after from either Kroger or Wal-Mart has to put me in the elite of men shoppers. But after being informed I had the wrong size spark plugs, and that the current plugs in the hot rod were doing fine, I saw myself with a perfect opportunity to turn the ten dollars I had put down for the spark plugs into a new set of wiper blades.
Speaking of hot rods, my son has one and actually works on hot rods. I determine a hot rod to be a car several years old, his being almost 34 years since it rolled off the assembly line and one that has a high performance motor that has a minimum of eight cylinders. He seems to be a dying breed; those people that actually like to get greasy, crawl up under cars, disassemble and reassemble various parts of automobiles up to and including the engine. I know of few people that work on hot rods now, and knew of few people when I was my son’s age that spent much time in that activity. Perhaps I take pride in his ability to do such work, because when I was his age, I enjoyed such activities, with one small difference. When my son rebuilds motors, or moves his distributor and 4 barrel carburetor from his car to his pickup and back again, his motor cranks and purrs with precision. When I was his age, I was allowed to work on the family station wagon, a Pontiac with a 2-barrel carburetor, a standard performance distributor, and a 326 engine, with 8 cylinders of course. Not falling into the hot rod category because of her year model, I was still only to happy to save up a huge amount of money, close to $120.00 and run down to the local Motor Parts and purchase a "High Performance Distributor". After obtaining permission from my parents to work on my back and forth to school and weekend mode of transportation, I set about changing out the distributor. Unfortunately, I was unaware that there was a certain sequence that the spark plugs wires have to be hooked up to a distributor, be it the factory installed "Standard Performance Distributor" or a "High Performance Distributor". Several factors played into my favor upon discovering this tidbit of automotive insight. First, it was Saturday and I had two days to rectify the situation. Secondly, my parents had another vehicle and they both worked at the same business, which would preclude them from having to have the station wagon in running order to be at work Monday morning. Thirdly, the school that my two brothers and I attended was not so far away that me and my two brothers could not reach it on foot. This had not been necessary since the moment I had reached the legal age to obtain my driver’s license and The Station Wagon was in running condition. Lastly, the factor that was most in favor was that my neighbor, Mr. Crain, had been a hot rod enthusiast in his youth and remained so into his latter years. A simple deduction of my situation and a few turns of the motor to determine the firing sequence, soon had my "High Performance Distributor" working and the motor of The Station Wagon purring like a kitten. I can say with pride that the engine sounded almost as good if not as good as it did before I put on my $120.00 "High Performance Distributor". Buoyed by my success with the "High Performance Distributor" I moved on the "High Performance 4 Barrel Carburetor". Again after saving up a huge amount of money, again neighboring in the vicinity of $120.00, I bought myself a "High Performance 4 Barrel Carburetor". I don’t recollect if this was purchased at the local Motor Parts of if I got it at the junkyard. Memory dims, but I do know it was a Holley and it had four barrels. Carburetors are not as worrisome as distributors as you are not bothered by that pesky firing order pattern, and are much easier to install. You bolt the carburetor to the manifold, you have a gas line coming in, you have several hoses to hook up to several parts of the engine and you are done. After bolting the carburetor down, hooking up the gas line, and finding most of the places to hook up the various hoses I was overjoyed to hear the engine fire up as I turned the key. Heck, it purred almost as well as it did before I hooked up the "High Performance 4 Barrel Carburetor". The only drawback to this great accomplishment of automotive modification was although the engine operated in an orderly fashion, one close to that before I made before my modifications, I could never get the back barrels of my "High Performance 4 Barrel Carburetor" to open up. Although my new gas mileage fell a few miles per gallon below my pre-modification level, I was still only too proud to pop the hood and show my off my "High Performance Distributor" and "High Performance 4 Barrel Carburetor" to my peers. Albeit they were no where near the "hot rod" aficionado I was. Despite their pleas to "Throw the coal to it", I told them I could only "shower down" on The Station Wagon in cases of dire emergencies or when I was on the drag strip. Sadly the only drag strip I’ve ever been near then or now is the one I pass out near my father-in-law’s farm. I’m pretty sure that my son’s back barrels open up and open up regularly as evidenced by the fact that he has replaced his right rear tire twice, and this happening after we had sprung for the first set of tires. I’m hoping that most of the missing rubber off his right rear tire was left at the aforementioned drag strip, but from some of the tire tracks I see around the general vicinity in which I reside, I’m not sure that is the case. Dimming memory considered, I’m pretty sure the only rubber The Station Wagon ever laid down was only after the brakes had been applied and applied with some pretty intense pressure.
My days of bolt turning and engine modifications have long since passed and I am now resigned to watching my son carry on in a field that not only fascinates me, but also confounds me. I now shell out for various and sundry automotive parts, and cat litter to clean up the occasionally leaks and drips that come with such endeavors. I can only wait for my current set of wipers to age and wear out so I can once again enjoy the instant moment of brilliance and clarity when I have to replace my wiper blades, or better yet, remember the parts store that runs out there and replaces them for me.
Roy Mabry
September 19, 2001