It really is a small world

Happy New Year! Boy do those years slip by when you get older! Here it is 2008 already, I never thought I would live this long. Back in the 60s the government was trying to kill off all of us 18-22 year-olds in Viet Nam. So anything after age 22 was borrowed time as far as I was concerned. I actually got a call from Associated Foods for a Boise shuttle on my last day of school. Of course I didn't get the message until I got home at 2:30 p.m. and by that time it was too late. But hey, they were thinking of me anyway. For the two days before Christmas Break I commuted to Farmington, Utah, which is about 12 miles south on I-15. The first day was fine, it only took twice as long as it would have anytime other than commute hour. But the second day was murder. It had snowed and I-15 was like a parking lot. I got off as soon as I could and took surface streets. It took me about 25 minutes longer than the day before, but I still was not late. The best part was I already knew where the school was and the classroom too. The teacher, Mrs. Mc Daniel, left instructions to have all the periods, except reading, watch a portion of "Rebel Without A Cause.' I had seen parts of it before, but there was a lot I didn't remember. But after viewing it six more times over two days I am well versed now thank you. At least it was colorized and that made it better in this case. Her classroom was one big library with her own checkout system, including cards and such. However her desk was a mess, there was not one square inch of open space on it. In most cases the mess was stacked up quite high. I had to clear a small space just to set the roll sheet. I really wanted to clean it up, but I could tell this was how she operated so I wasn't about to disrupt her system. I was anxious to get out of there for the Christmas break. I was getting behind on the '57 Chevy and was dying to take the engine apart to see what it really was. The guy I bought it from said it was a 350 ci with a lumpy cam and good heads. But it spit back through the carburetor and really didn't have a lot of power, not what I figured it should have anyway. I got a chance to look inside in a few days and discovered it was a two-bolt-main engine. That would somewhat limit the amount of power the bottom end would take. So off came the heads and according to the numbers it should have had 2.02 inch intake valves. However it had 1.94 inch valves instead. Of this I was not disappointed. The big valves are fine for racing, but the smaller valves are better for the street. I did discover that someone had been through the engine and had bored it .030 over and it had a .010 under crank. So I didn't have to deal with that anyway. The puzzling part was whomever had rebuilt the engine didn't bother to buy a new oil pump, and the screen was laying in the bottom of the pan, not good. I ordered a new Crane cam and lifter set that is the equivalent of a 350 h.p. 350 ci Chevy cam. Now I have it installed straight up and I'm getting ready to torque down the heads. The firewall and front frame is cleaned and painted. Now I have to wrestle the new 2 inch drop front coil springs into position with the newly bushed front control arms. I had to make a spring compressor to get the old ones out. I put them alongside the new ones and there must be at least eight inches difference between the two. One of the past owners wanted to raise the car and put huge front springs in it and raised the back end with helper springs. I could actually slide under the car and fix the shift linkage without raising it. Now it's going to be back to school for awhile. I really thought I would get a few jobs this week, you know, hung over educators, but that hasn't happened. However flu season is just getting started so I'm sure I'll be back in the classroom soon. I'm not really disappointed about not getting driving jobs over the past month. It has snowed and snowed and snowed since then and I sure don't want to try climbing the passes to get out of the Salt Valley. It has been pretty cold too. In the valley it gets down to the single digits once in a while, but one town, Jensen, in eastern Utah near the Colorado border has gotten down to -27! I don't even want to go there! I fly model R/C planes and have for 30 years. We have a pretty nice field here with good guys as club members. I got to talking with one of them, Von Warner, and he wanted to know where I moved from. I told him Willows and he knew exactly where it was. This is the first time that has happened since I moved to Utah. Well to make a long story short, he is the cousin of the Memmott brothers, Doug and Roger, in Willows. Sometimes it is a small world indeed!