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(Next day. Found the Bellhousing Adapter casting was too thick, bound up the flywheel and wouldn't let the critter turn. That's what die-grinders are for, no? No Anti-Blessing for the Fiver, but we'll rustle up something to drive.)

This is part of the program. When you finish something, you are only half done.

You either have to do everything twice or pay for it twice or some dang thing that makes it painful. How else could the satisfaction at the end not be earned ? It will be worth it. We won't brag ahead of time, but if it ever runs....and it will......Whoa, Daddy!

We heard recently from a new detractor that we, here, just write about people who do. Maybe that cat oughta hang out in the barn with us a few nights this week and see if it's a word processor or a ratchet that we got in our hands!

Here's what we wrote when we prematurely enunciated......................

"So we got the project car running and....I'm writing this before it even happened...optomistic, I s'pose.........and all the expected leaks were (will be) there. One by one we fix 'em, try the car out. There were parts that were gonna collide going down the road - we pulled them apart far enough; it started, stopped, steered, sounded way cool and......Gawd!

It looks good. To us, anywho. Got a couple of aesthetic refinements to make but...are they EVER done?

OK. Next?

That was short-lived, wasn't it? No, we aren't really that casual about a new piece - we're stoked - but there has to be an iron in the fire. A cause. A purpose. A reason to exist? The Fiver will be what we go and play in, even including a little touring around with other hicks who see things the way we do....but the itch to put something together has gotta be scratched, too.

Don't want to invest any real loot on one; but there's gotta be something out there begging for some sweat-equity and I'm the guy for the job. It's like fate is telling us to do this wreck that we been trying to get rid of. No one will buy the thing and we KNOW certain-sure that it'll be a neat car and maybe this is the one we'll do almost all by ourselves. Couldn't possibly cost much because the parts are here. Not just another 'parts' sermon. They really are here. Frame, axle, brakes, 'bones, rear, 'tube, 3.25 (highway) gears, B trans, B engine, hi-performance flathead, hedders, body, steering column, even upholstery, radiator and shell, Kelseys, why........that's no hill ( right Rustman?) We need to do something like Mitch did with the Mild Mod.

Create something.

Invent ways to accomplish the apparently un-accomplishable; set it up yourself.

It can be the Lakes Commuter we envision: Banger flathead, T Touring hiboy ala Hynes, ziggy springs, Kelseys, Fer-Shit seat covers, jaunty windshield, and a Motometer .(Yeah, when we first got into this stuff, everybody ran Motometers with brass wings and that's the pitch this time, Boys.) And, ya know, a guy would be smart to set it up for a bolt-in roll cage so's he could make a "Run at the Hun" someday. Hmmmm..new T Shirt?

I'll paint it too...and settle for whatever comes outa the gun........and I think the chassis project is pretty much bolt-on, but may take some stretching. I'm gettin' me a stinkin' welder and gonna practice, and then lengthen it myself. (Probly no threat here to 'Wood Jake, Vern, Keith , Mike, et. al, but it's time to evolve.)

And wire it. That seems logical enough, if a cat just sets it up and does it a wire at a time when he's got time. Oh yeah. Time.

I don't have time for doodley squat.

I want to do a lot of things and to have the projects of my dreams and if I don't hammer these concepts one after another, they won't happen. But every time I complete one I add one and the list stays as long - or gets longer - but that is it, isn't it?

The plateau. The grind. The pursuit. Don't ever wish yourself done.

Jivin' about this dream has probably given me less to talk about when I see the River City Roadster guys next. I will have blown my cover - divulged all the passionate goins-on that I woulda talked about over a whiskey while we alternately 'build' cars over a patio table. First mine, then his, then mine again and....'talkin'-off' Mitch calls it..............

"But when are we gonna talk about me?"

It will never change, because there will never be a 'last' project, or a coup de grace. (Voyeurs should note the silent p.....).

It is the process that matters. We suggest you -and we- savor it. That's where the validity is; we discovered it by observing Hop Up Guys quietly doing the deed. Byrd, Small, Beck, and hundreds of the rest of you, know the secret handshake, don't ya?

Ya made us want to know it, too, so we'd know the....the.. peace. The cool. Yeah. That may be it. Real cool comes from peace. If a guy has enough peace it reflects in what we at arms-length see as......... cool.

It's almost religious.

Could there be a correlation here?

Grab a Gear.