25 May 09 09:22, Roger Nelson wrote to Roy Witt:


 RW>> I did. I had a Mohawk haircut when I was 13 and had to use it to
 RW>> keep the cut standing up. Later, it came in handy for sweeps and
 RW>> waterfalls.

 RN> Any pictures?  (-:

If they still exist, my brother would have them. We're not on speaking
terms.

 RW>> Please! We don't want him here either...

 RN> LOL!  Benson was my boss at one time.  He bought the delership he
 RN> began in (Mike Persia Chevrolet), had a meeting one night for all the
 RN> employees and we were informed that there would no longer be two week
 RN> vacations and everyone of us would be "starting over." 
From then on,
 RN> there was nothing but a pack of lies fed to the employees who elected
 RN> to remain.  One of the things we were told is that those of us in
 RN> managerial positions who enjoyed company demos would have routine
 RN> inspections of our demos and he didn't want to find any ashes or
 RN> cigarette butts in the ash trays.  I smoked at the time and I had a
 RN> demo.  This was shock to the system # 2.  Then I had a face-to-face
 RN> meeting with the co-owner of the place (Arnold Gold) and he told me
 RN> all of the perks I was going to get which, of course, I never
 RN> received.  I gave him my two weeks notice after he lied to my face
 RN> and told me he never promised me anything.  Another thing that bugged
 RN> me about those two guys was that they let it be known if we didn't
 RN> like what we were told, we would be replaced by workers from SA who
 RN> would work for cheaper wages than we did.  Eventually, everyone there
 RN> left, with me being among the first.

With the competition here in SA among Chevy dealers, I doubt that anyone
in SA would be making any less than ya'll there in NO. If they paid a man
lower than somewhere else, he's going to go there looking for work.

 RW>> That'll never happen...the Chargers have been doing that to SD for
 RW>> decades.

 RN> I suppose not, but hope springs eternal and no one is indispensible.
 RN> A move of the team from N.O. right now would result in a tremendous
 RN> loss of revenue for the city and the state at a time when they can
 RN> ill afford it and Benson KNOWS this.  Now ask me if he cares.

As long as you folks line his pockets with gold without end, probably not.

 RW>> It was free. Harry used to work there and still has contacts.

 RN> Lucky you.

We do things like that. He's leaving home and needs a computer for after
hours to browze the internet. I have and older one that I don't need, so
it's his.

 RW>> I think I've heard of that town in another state. :o)

 RN> Then Benson must have a bunch of car realerships there.  (-:

I think there are other people named Benson besides him.

 RN> I noticed the Chevy dealer here is adding a section to the front of
 RN> his building.  GM is probably financing it with taxpayer money.

Could be.

 RW>> Not if you spoon it into your mouth faster.

 RN> It isn't for me.  It's for the kids.  I seldom eat ice cream anymore.
 RN> I used to get a 5-quart bucket (imagine spooning all of that before
 RN> it melts) of chocolate, put a few scoops into a big bowl and cut up a
 RN> banana in it. Sort of like a banana split without the nuts and other
 RN> stuff.

When I was 16, I worked in a dairy. I've been a soda jerk and have sold 5
gallons of ice cream for $5 plus tax, total $5.25 in those days. $5 won't
even get you a half gallon these days. Every other Sunday, I worked the
morning shift by myself. By afternoon, I already had my fair share of ice
cream.

 RW>> The idea is to use the forces of nature to do the work. I've never
 RW>> lifted a tire off or on a vehicle...the hard part is putting it in
 RW>> the bed of your truck or the trunk of your car. Even that can be
 RW>> easy if you use the truck/trunk for leverage.

 RN> That's the way I did it, too.  When I first got my truck, I realized
 RN> I wasn't going to be strong forever, so the first thing I did was
 RN> remove the spare from the undercarriage and install it in the bed.

Late model trucks have the spare mounted on the end of a cable that you
use the screw jack handle to lower. Putting the flat tire in the place of
the spare wasn't allowed by the company I worked for; it had to be placed
in the bed. Lifting a heavy wheel and tire into the bed is more work than
putting it where the spare came from. If it had air in it, it could be
bounced into the bed, but then, being flat is why it's not on the ground
anymore. The way I did it was to place the tire in front of my right leg
and using my leg and my hands, threw it onto the tailgate. I learned that
technique while visiting my cousin on the farm. He used that method to put
full 10 or 12gal milk cans into the cooler.

 RW>> Frozen dog pooh as grenades in the winter time.

 RN> I don't remember doing that.  (-:

Would they freeze in Lousiana?

 RW>> My friend Andrew is like that. He makes good use of his 'costly'
 RW>> minutes by saying the least amount of words to get the message
 RW>> across. Most of the time, he won't even wait for a reply before he
 RW>> hangs up.

 RN> Yeah, but this is a guy who was in the Marine Corps, got out after
 RN> his enlistment was up, got bored to tears when he got back home, so
 RN> he joined the Navy just in time for the "Korean
Conflict."  He showed
 RN> me some photos of the NKs walking in some shells toward the ship he
 RN> was on and one of them hit near enough for some sailors to be killed.
 RN> And, he doesn't own a cell phone.

Why didn't the captain move the ship before the shells hit it?

 RW>> You shouldn't. That defeats the purpose of ABS.

 RN> I'll try to remember that, but I might have a difficult time
 RN> convincing my foot.

It took a while for me to get used to it too. My Camaro has a switch to
turn off the 'traction' control, which is a part of the ABS controlled by
the PCM. If you brake with full pressure while it's on, the rear end
begins to bounce on surfaces that have no traction in the first place and
the pedal bounces around. This happens mostly on loose gravel in the
center turn lanes. Turning off the traction control gives you more control
over the car. The feature I don't like about it is that when traction
control is on, the PCM also closes the throttle, so your foot is pushed
back by the motor that closes it.

 RW>> Yeup. The Ford influence came from my early teens as I hung out with
 RW>> a bunch of guys at a Texaco station. All of them were older and they
 RW>> only drove Fords. Even my dad and my uncle, both auto mechanics,
 RW>> told me to not buy a Ford, but I was too stubborn to listen to them.

 RN> Many of the guys I knew drove Fords.  One of them was Knot
 RN> Farrington, who drove a T-Bird.  Later on, he and another friend of
 RN> mine built a car and took it to Bonneville where he set a record for
 RN> that class of car.  I don't remember what it was.

It was a 1962 Thunderbird...the record is still in the books and there's a
model of that car. Or at least there used to be a model of it.

[many big name drivers had pulled out because the condition of the track
was in very bad shape]

"This was confirmed and spirits rose when Knot Farrington of New Orleans
made one of the first runs. This year his T-Bird, powered by a GMC 6-71
blown, 429-cubic-inch Chrysler, had had its basically stock body made the
foundation for a very beautiful streamlined shell. Knot rolled the maroon
car off its trailer, pushed it to the starting line and streaked over the
Salt at 217 mph . . . 17 mph over the existing record. The following
morning he backed that up with a new two-way record of 212.774 mph and a
couple of days later he boosted this to 219.254, an all-time record for
gasoline-fuel machines."

http://www.sportscars.tv/Newfiles/bonneville61.html

 RN> I was part of a baseball battery (catcher) and the pitcher and I were
 RN> good friends.  He ordered a '57 150 with the rear seat deleted and
 RN> had the Rochester fuel injection and positraction rear axle.  In
 RN> stock form, I couldn't keep up with him, but after the souping, it
 RN> was a different story. He and I went a lot of places together even
 RN> after he got married and his wife came with us.  I think it was back
 RN> in '58 we went up to Baton Rouge to see LSU (I'm not a fan of theirs,
 RN> but he is) play Georgia Tech and as it it turned out, Joanne Woodward
 RN> was also at the game, but we were seated across the field on the Tech
 RN> side because it was the only place we could get tickets.

I also noted on the internet a mention that Knot was/is a sherrif in some
parish of LA...

 RW>> Hmmmm. I wonder if a GPS unit would find it for you...

 RN> Joe is the GPS expert.  I steer with dead reckoning.

If you put in the coordinates of those islands, you won't need to do any
dead reckoning.

 RW>> Trust me, it's that bad. Those guys you talk to are just pulling
 RW>> your leg.

 RN> I pull right back.  Some of them were a big help to me after I lost
 RN> everything 4 years ago and even offered me a place to stay until
 RN> things settled.

That's cool.

 RW>> He's a cold weather fan...in the winter, he'd wear insulated
 RW>> underwear and long under wear under it. Then he'd pile on a couple
 RW>> pair of pants and shirts before he put on his hooded, butt length
 RW>> coat, gulashes, gloves and scarves and then walked to work and spend
 RW>> the day outdoors...one benefit he had was rosey cheeks. 'course,
 RW>> being a Switzer might have helped.

 RN> Now that all makes sense.  You have to grow up in that kind of
 RN> weather to be used to it.  I don't think I could.

As a 'hip' teen, I never wore anything that wasn't cool, even in winter.
No gloves, no boots, no hats and no ear muffs. Many times I thought my
ears would freeze and fall off while walking in those low temps. And for
the longest time, after I had moved to CA and made a short visit back
there, I could shovel snow in a T-shirt without getting cold. I would even
work up a sweat.

 RW>> Just like my upcoming high school re-union. None of the gals I used
 RW>> to date in high school are alive anymore, save for one. And she
 RW>> probably won't show.

 RN> I noticed on the net my grade school now has reunions.  On of my
 RN> friends and I tried to start one years ago, but the trouble we ran
 RN> afoul of was finding the girls.  They'd surely be married and changed
 RN> their name or moved out of town.  I looked through some pictures of
 RN> the students and teachers and the only one I recognized was Mrs.
 RN> Murphy, who was my 6th grade teacher and the school's music director.
 RN> None of the names of the students were familiar and after all these
 RN> years, neither were their faces. (-:

I thought about doing that when 30 years had gone by after our drag racing
club disbanded...finding any of them then was more than a chore.

 RW>> You told me and I agreed that wasn't the right thing to do.

 RN> Maybe I should have told you before I decided to do that.  I didn't
 RN> cut the wire going to the display in the dash, so during startup, I
 RN> get from the Message Center an error with the suspension because I
 RN> turned the switch in the trunk off.  Switching it back to the on
 RN> position produces almost the same message.

Remove the bulb...On my Camaro there's a shifter lock-out while you're in
slow traffic. It only allows you to shift out of 1st into 4th below
20mph, bypassing the 2nd and 3rd shift gate. In the dash is a light that
comes on and says 'Skip Shift', even after I disabled the solinoid by
removing the connector to it. In it's place, I put a 220ohm resistor to
make the PCM think the solinoid was still hooked up (otherwise you'll get
a SES light). I sold a kit to do that on Ebay for a while, beating the
competition's price by half.

 RW>> Three lugs less and a jacking point next to the wheel.

 RN> Yep!

 RW>> I can't say that I blame him. Mechanics have a tendency to drive
 RW>> (recommend) what won't break very often.

 RN> I won't let him work on any vehicle of mine anymore, so it's a moot
 RN> point.

Not because he isn't capable, I'll bet. :o)

 RW>> RN> But if you stand by and do nothing, you achieve nothing.

 RW>> Have you ever known me do that? :o)

 RN> LOL!  Not once!

:o)

                R\%/itt

Joy lives in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in
the victory itself.

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