MAGAZINE

Yeah?

There's usually something to be pissed off about too, right?! We can still get sick of it. Oh, yeah. We can get full up to here.

We thrashed on our project evenings and weekends and every lovin' thing we touched turned into a project. I mean, Shit! When does it get easy!!!

Finally got to send the wreck to somebody else..... in L.A., was it...... for some finishing touches and, Man, was it a pleasure to have that thing out of our sight. Then we got the Cragar ready to go hill climbing and that was pretty satisfying and we got the summer to look forward to, and, Hey!

Where the hell is my coupe? The tires haven't even cooled off in the place where it is ...and we miss the thing. Maybe it's because the drive is going to happen soon. That energy has to go somewhere, so it gets channeled into daytime dreaming and ........you know how that goes. "Let's get something into that empty project stall."

Surely we got something that needs maintenance, but that doesn't feel creative. Necessary, yes. Maybe not creative.

So we make a list.

We could start laying out running gear parts for the '26 touring and arrange the chassis work.

Naaaaw.

We could start to work on that 'practical' closed car we want.

Nope.

We could lay out the "Morton Meteor" project.

Eh.

Then again, we could come to our senses and do the maintenance.

We could check tie rod ends, wheel bearings, kingpins, change oil, shoot some zerks, look the tires over; see if the pitman arm is still there...that all may not be creative, but it is putting your hands on your iron, using tools and....maybe it is creative in a way. We will without doubt find something cracked, distressed, shaky....something in need of a tweak or replacement. And, lost in the process, that effort always turns out to be as much fun as putting together something new. It's accomplishment, achieved in base ways, that is integral to our existence as car guys. It doesn't matter how good we are at it. Time, experience and repetition will ultimately make us pretty damn good at most of it. We are not dumb. It's not science.

So we'll be lost in the iron and steel and sheetmetal for as long as it takes to complete the task................ and morons won't exist because they can't get in here........don't have a map. They can't penetrate the veil. They don't have the security clearance. Don't know the secret handshake.......the password.

The work at hand serves a practical purpose, and as a side benefit it provides refuge and you lose yourself in it and it is....tonic............an elixir......................that works like a legal drug with no side effects. It's kind of unintended, but flight instincts are satisfied because you are .................away.

It's like there's a frickin' moat around ya....you're safe here...and your parapets, and your pots of boiling oil and your flaming arrows and catapults and spears...... say Snap-On on them.

Ya got simple pleasures if you can find escape through an oil change, Bub.

Hop Frickin' Up Honor.