When Joe and James arrived, Bobby had just got done draining the oil out of the 4-speed box, and it smelled like a dead brontosaurus....
That wouldn't matter any after new synchro's and what not had been installed though.

He came out from under the shed wiping his calloused hands on a rag, and watched the four-by pull up...

It was midmorning, and at this time of the year there were still a few hours before the heat kicked in. Heat that Bob was long used too, but avoided anyway. Why sweat if you don't hafta?

Jim made the introductions, and they wandered around the place talking about things as they went on the compulsory "nickle tour"...

At a point, they stopped by a suprisingly rust-free studebaker truck that was parked pretty much in the weeds. The lines of the body work looked like some kind of automotive "Art-Deco" to Joe, and when he commented on it Bobby grinned, and offered:

"That right there was my first truck - I got it from a friend of my Pop's. I learned a ton of stuff from that old machine, but mostly what not to look for when you buy a used vehicle."

His grin got even bigger.

"I named it "DUBBLE NUTZ", because that's what it took to hold it together..."

Joe had just time enough to feel that shot run down to his funny-bone, and snorted. And then they were all bustin' up laughing!

"Double-Nuts, jeez..." In spite of himself he couldn't help smiling over the idea. For a little bit Joe forgot how desperate he was.

Bob looked over at Jim and said "Well, we've established that he has my 'Off-The-Wall' sense of humor..." He winked.

"I've needed help for a while now, and you say he can weld?"

Jim nodded. "He was going to look into a job at a shipyard when his world blew up on him."

Joe looked back and forth between the two, suddenly sobering up. He wasn't sure what was going on in the minds of the two men, but for whatever reason he began to feel hope flame up inside....

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 11-Jan-02 AT 05:55 PM (EST)]They were sitting in the living area of the double-wide having a cold Coors or two. The question had come up as to how Joe had got into welding in the first place, and thinking back brought a rush of memories to him.

"I was working as a construction laborer, the first time I met this one old guy - I forget where he said he was from. He had relatives in someplace called Rotterdam though... Everyone called him Sven."

"I do remember one thing though - someone once called him "the Swede", and he got real upset about it! Some kind of scandinavian thing...."

"But anyway, he only showed up once in a while. He was an old friend of the boss, I think. The first time I saw him, some ****-sure young framer decided to move one of the flatbeds even though he knew he wasn't supposed to be driving it, and he slid off into the mud at the site. That was bad enough, but they had to get it out with a tow-chain and a back-hoe, and when they did that they bent the tie-rod on a rock"

Joe looked around, seeing only his thoughts.

"It made the truck unsteerable, and so they called Sven to try to straighten it...."

In his minds eye, that day came flooding back to him...


There was a circle of management and the workers closest to the problem. Sven was there, a medium height, stocky, blonde fella wearing overalls.

The regular driver of the truck was cussing again...

"If you just heat it up, and bend it back to what it was before - that mother F@$#@$@ is going to be weakened, and it won't be safe!"

In what was obviously a feigned accent (even if Joe had not talked to him before, to point him to where the truck was at, and knew he spoke perfect english) Sven said: "Det var goot steel in dat ONE. YOOO can make it bent back var it straight mit no vorries! It var meant TOO be strong!" He nodded his head, and added: "DONCHA KNOW!!!"

The driver looked a little wild eyed at that, but the foreman laughed and said "You just kill me sometimes, Lars..."

"Take care of it, I'll talk to ya later."

The foreman walked away chuckling.

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 12-Jan-02 AT 02:54 PM (EST)]The few times Lars Swensen was out at sites Joe was working, Joe made it a point to take a break so he could talk to the man. And he began to get real interested in the arts of metallurgy.

According to Sven, the welders craft began far back in time when the original blacksmiths first began using metals to form their tools instead of just chipping flint or other stones into useful shapes and tying them onto wooden handles with hide straps.

Because of those discussions, Joe got a library card again, and read about the bronze and copper ages. The periods in time when mankind learned to coax metal traces out of mixed pieces of rock and form shapes that were made of something shiny that the world had never shown men before... The progression to harder and harder metals, using greater amounts of heat to form - but yielding edges so hard they would hold an edge even when used to turn soil in a rocky field.

One day, Sven invited him out to his place in Huntington Beach to try some of the things they had talked about. All true tradesmen will eventually take an apprentice if they meet someone who shows enough interest, and that was just what Sven had decided to try.

Joe got there early.


"And that was the beginning of it all. Once I started helping Sven, I gave Al notice at the other job. And it's been a little tight sometimes, like when I went to school to get certified. But it's always been interesting..."

"I wish I had my tanks and stuff, but I bet Cheryl sells them long before I can get back there."

Bobby looked straight at him and said, "I have a set, but I was just never very good at it. I can melt things together if I'm careful, but I never went to school for it. How would you like to try your hand as a mill wright for a while? I even have an extra trailer you can stay in if you want. It's kind of small, but it's cozy- I lived in it for a long time."

It wasn't ten minutes later that they shook on the deal.

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 12-Jan-02 AT 03:16 PM (EST)]Sparks flew, as the grinder cut into the break on the trailer hitch.

Across from him, Bobby watched the whole process, and asked at one point "Aren't you taking off a little too much steel?"

"Nope. I have to make sure there are no rust-pockets to make a flaw in the join, otherwise it will just corrode from the inside out or have a pocket in it that will start cracks running later. Besides, I'm going to add metal to it with the arc rods, that should build it up even stronger than when it was new."

And speaking of which, Joe ground a clean spot on the metal frame he was working on so that the ground clamp would have a good connection.

It was a few weeks after he had moved into the old Airstream at Bobbies place, and word had gotten around about the mill wrights new partner...

After the first few farm trucks and tractors Joe had worked on, people were saying there was some kind of a miracle worker out at the five acre desert lot. But Joe payed no attention to that except to take a certain professional pride in the jobs he did.

The van was over next to the old 'Stude, they went after it the same weekend Jimmy had brought him over. In fact, they all three went up in Jim's Bronco, and towed it with a forty foot chain Bobby brought with them.

And sure enough, when they got to the truck - somebody was underneath it doing something, while two other guys stood around joking...

"You boys looking for truck parts?" asked Bobby idly, as he slid out of the truck.

"What's it to ya?" Commented one of them, who was chewing on a toothpick at the moment. His buddy nudged him.

"Nah man," said the shorter fella "We're just out here trying to fix my van so I can get it home." He grinned.

Joe pushed forward past Bobby "I don't see how that can be, since it's MY gosh darnn van!"

"F@##!!" Commented the toothpick chewer, as Jim came around the back of the truck...

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 12-Jan-02 AT 04:18 PM (EST)]"BOY!" Called out Jim, "You'd best git your little self out from under the man's wheels RIGHT now."

The short fella was looking worried, but the tall guy spat out the toothpick and took a step forward. "You're fulla @%#, this ain't nuthin' of yours! And if you don't beat it, you're GONNA git beat."

Joe stood his ground, and stared at the man with a cold, numbing rage running clear through him. The thought of these scavenger scum ripping apart his brothers van made him sick inside..

"You boneheads had best hit the highway." Bobby said calmly. We can settle this with one radio call, and I bet the local sherriff has a rap-sheet on every one of you jokers that reads like a short course on criminal justice..."

The tall guy started to rush forward, but his buddy grabbed him. "Hey we ain't lookin' for no trouble mister, just let us get our stuff and we're outta here..."

"I don't think so," said Bob "I think you all had better drop everything and just leave. Serves you right for taking advantage of honest people!"

The third man had joined his two pals by now, and they were both struggling to hold the taller one back -who was cussing up a storm.

Joe walked over to the van to see what they had done to it, and Bob had partly circled the three, watchfully. Jim turned to see where Joe was at, when "tall, dumb, and mouthy" made a fatal comment:

"You ain't nothing but a bunch of @#%-whipped city boys! I bet you f@#%ers sell real estate and ain't been in a fight in your f@#%ing yella lives!!!"

It stopped Jim cold. It was funny - everything seemed to stop. As if time froze when the words were recieved...

He thought about Lisa Lynn, and the pretty little suburban house of theirs, and everything it took to make it all come true.

He thought about the kind of low-life, foul-mouthed, bar-crawling punks that victimized people in trouble, and realized that in twenty years people like that would still have nothing to their names to show...

And then he spun around in a red rage, and tore into the son of a bitch!

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 12-Jan-02 AT 04:20 PM (EST)]It was over almost before it had started...

When Bob saw Jim tackle the mouthy one right out from between his two accomplices, he dropped the near side one with a foot-sweep, and launched a double-kick straight into the chest of the one on the far side. That one skidded into the dust five feet away...

The little bit of martial arts he had picked up in his year in the Air Force served him well. He was facing back toward the first one just in time to watch him scramble away practically screaming "Don't hurt me!!!"

He looked for Jim, and saw him sitting on top of the big guy - "POP!" went the big country fist into the punks mouth...

"And I don't ever want to hear that kind of filthy trash language around me again!" The fist raised up, "YOU HEAR ME?"

The man, who ten seconds ago had probably thought of himself as a low-born king of some kind, was saying "Lemmee GO, PLEASE mister..."

When they let him up, they all three ran to a beat up old buick and laid rubber getting back on the road. Someone - likely the tall one - hollered something obscene as they pulled away, but it didn't matter...

Joe was amazed, he didn't even have time to close the gap between the van and his friends before it was over and done with. He remembered the line from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as he looked at his new friends and thought "Who are those guys?"

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 12-Jan-02 AT 04:16 PM (EST)]https://www.ford-trucks.com/dcforum/Images/compute.gif
*Authors Note:


Apologies to Ken Payne for the "Virtual Language" in parts of that...

We all know that standards of language have come a long way down in the last thirty years or so, but I felt that artistic lisence required something there -

And in fact, I think you can all see how I personally feel about it from what I wrote.

There was a time when I talked just like all of the other friends I had in high-school, but someone pointed out that if I left out all of the cool buzz-profanity in things I said, I would actually have to use very few words to express my ideas. It took months to de-program that kind of stuff from my vocabulary. But that in itself is another accomplishment I am proud of having done!

I can still talk trash, but I choose not to.

I am not impressed by it.

`Wolf

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 12-Jan-02 AT 09:33 PM (EST)]Some additional notes, before I proceed -

The story needs a little more room, in time. In thinking about it, it seems to me more realistic to assume the original "Somewhere in Arizona" date, when Jim looked into the campfire should more reasonably be nineteen eighty seven - it makes it all work better, and gives me more room to write. I'll fix it on the member page.

Also, the story is about to take a turn I doubt anyone had any idea of except me. I saw it in the beginning though, and my research is not very good at best. But I do have memories....
I'll have to write a disclaimer of course. Oh well

But again, no peeking ahead!


>=oD

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 12-Jan-02 AT 09:39 PM (EST)]Thunder began to rumble from beyond turn one, and the crowd in the stands were getting excited! Cheers broke out as the first car came onto the track near the entrance to the back straight, the Tamale Wagon - a local crowd pleaser...

The announcer's voice was almost impossible to hear over the growing noise, distorted by the PA system in the first place. The driver took advantage of the chance to see what had been done to the track by trying it a little bit on turns three and four, to the huge enjoyment of all the fans. The packed clay was rough still from the previous events that night, and the sprinter got just a little sideways before arrowing down past the grandstands in the front stretch....

The people loved it!

Bright lights glared down from tall steel poles, as one by one the other sprint cars came onto the track, spaced so that they would have little trouble getting in line.

The drivers all knew their starting positions, and with a bit of jockeying, and some hustling in the back-stretch they began to form up for the trophy dash!!!

Above the center stands, the flag marshall watched them all closely, as track officials tried to sort things out down below. Before long, nine rows of cars, two abreast, were rumbling around the track in perfect formation. Towards the back, the orange on black of the number ninety-nine car flashed under the lights in turn two.

It was an event that people waited all week to see, it was THUNDER!
It was RACING....

The crowd held it's breathe as the cars swept toward the line, and the flagman carefully held one corner of the green flag, to make sure the night wind didn't send a false signal...

And then - THE GREEN FLAG FLEW!

A BLAST of motor noise roared out, and the first turn tangle was a reality...

The leaders fought for running room, and massive tires clawed for any grip they could find in the clay, like iron panthers digging in claws to hold themselves into the turn. Mud bits splattered the sign boards, with all of the sponsors listed on them, as the pack raged into the backstretch -

The Tamale wagon - a Tognotti framed, Donovan engined machine was dueling it out with a car driven by a young man from Houston Texas in turns three and four, as the 99 car finally got sorted out among the slower cars who had come in second and third in the earlier heats...

The sound of the cars blasting past the stands was deafening, but that was what everyone had come here tonight FOR...

 

End of this thread, I need to collect it all....

~Wolf

 

Do you begin to see my vision?

 

Greywolf you've done it again. Maybe outdone yourself. You really ought to look into getting some of your works published.

Thanks
Deb

 

Well, at least provisionally - this one can be published here!

I have the first part on my member page, and the second is in the process...

(getting the frame links to run right almost drove me up the wall though)

 

GREYWOLF...what happened to the "Ole 99" story? I read like 5 chapters I think. Now Im hooked and havent seen any new chapters lately.Just wanted to say Thanks for story and keep on writing!

 

In essence - although it looked like a good way to draw people to the boards, webmaster moved that it was innapropriate usage to put a novel on the boards.

I myself found myself torn in some ways, because it seemed that there was a big following for it. But it does seem to need a member page posting instead of taking up space on the forum....

I don't really know what to say about that - but Ken said "Sorry Bud", and I have to abide by that.

Maybe he can be petitioned about it, but in my heart I think he has a point.

Even though I remember the old "Flash Gordon" episodes....

But sooner or later I WILL get some more out.

I write best in an open forum, but maybe it's time I tried a different way....