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megastir
Mega means big or large
stir because I like to mix it up
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Wednesday, December 18, 2002 :::
Man I have a love hate thing with the automobile.
Up here in the frozen northeast you need more than a car. You need a truck, and a 4wd at that. The places I go are often axle deep in snow, narrow icy and unpredictable in winter. Things are worse in spring for two weeks the ground begins to thaw and dirt roads turn to jello. If your driving in this quagmire you'd better have 4wd or you will get stuck. If you have 4wd and drive these roads you will turn them into deeply rutted mud tracks useless for cars till they are graded again.
I've been running two 1990 Toyota 4 runners, 22re efi not expensive by today's ridiculous SUV prices but its the most I've ever spent buying and maintaining vehicles in my lifetime.
It wasn't always like this. The most satisfying car story I have was the 1976 Firebird Esprit I bought for $175 US dollars from a crazy Vietnam vet named Byron who lived in a cinderblock shack in the parking lot behind the World Gym on Auhai St. in Waikiki.
I needed a car and buddy of mine knew about this guy at his gym who had some cars. So we go over there and Byron who's six foot six, oil stained, dirty and wearing earplugs. He is wrenching something underneath an enormous modified van with a least 12 inches of lift on a custom suspension system. He doesn't hear us, obviously, but finally sees us and shows us the wheels he has. You could tell he was a pack rat because he didn't really want to sell any of his cars. "how bout that 72 malibu?" he says "it ain't got no reverse but runs good". "uh no I need reverse" I say. "How bout that old Land cruiser?" my buddy spots his dream truck rusting away in a corner. "nope" grunts Byron "can't sell that" So we settle on a cream coloured but rusty firebird that has all its gears for $175US. "Great here's the cash, do you have the ownership?" "uh well somewhere" he says, I glance in the cinderblock shack at an outrageous mess of bolts oil cans and car parts. "you can take the car come back tomorrow for the papers".
I went back there every day for two weeks. Each time the same scene played out. I would approach Byron who inevitably would not hear me coming and then I would shout his name or tap him on the back and he would spin around with the look of a shell shocked psycho killer and say "NEVER SNEAK UP ON ME AGIAN YOU GOT THAT!!!!". I guess he went through some heavy shit 20 years ago in east Asia whatever. I need the pink slip. Finally I got it all together got to the DMV put the car into my name, Fuck the insurance I'm young and stupid. Fibre-glassed the rust spots. .Drove the car for Eight months only had to plug a hole in a tire and change the fuel filter once. It was a bored out 350 V8 fastest car if ever diven. Sold it to some jarhead stationed in Pearl Harbour for $220us.
Fuck those were the days.
::: posted by Mega at 7:27 AM
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