Me and My Goat

January 1, 2011

Me and MY Goat

Chapter One

What a car!  A Dream it was.  It started out nice, and it lasted a long time.  More miles on that car than any other; nearly 175,000 miles I reckon; the speedometer cable rung into one time and it was an awful long time till there was enough money for taters and mechanics.  It was a muscle car from the muscle years.  It was loud and it was fast and it was fun.  And I’m sure, beyond a doubt it could tell you some tales, but let me tell ‘em first.  Who’d believe a car? 

It was the summer of 1971; not long following college graduation.  I was waitin’ for my wife at the barn on the research farm where I worked.  She was late that day.  Finally, I saw her at the top of the rise at the stop sign, and something didn’t look just right.  The tail end of the car was lookin’ funny and I was lookin’ at the front end.  Oh no.  It’s wrecked.  Well, maybe it ain’t that bad, for she’s still drivin’ it.  And that’s when the fight started….”What happened to my car,” were the first words outta my mouth; not, “honey, are you all right?”  I suppose my priorities were somewhere else just then, for that was really a car!  See, some 40 years later, and I still miss that car: 1965 Ford Galaxie, 390 cid, two door hardtop, fastback, bone white with red interior.  She was a beauty, and to this day; the best car I ever owned.  But it would never replace the Goat.  I suppose it was deevine providence once again in my life that gave me a ride to get me through the “wilderness years.”  And you think Jesus was the onliest one in the wilderness!  He wasn’t, and mine lasted a tad more’n 40 days, I’ll tell you. 

Anyhow, that’s when I learned the meaning of “totaled,” as to damage estimates for automobile insurance uses.  It means “tough luck buddy, for this horse needs shootin’.”  I think insurance gave me $800 and I sold it to a mechanic for $400, thinkin’ I got a deal.  We went shoppin’ for the replacement, and this Green Goat won my heart.  I never was good at car shoppin’.  I’d start on one lot with plans to “shop around,” and next thing I know, I’m drivin’ off the lot in my next “ride.”   Remember, I was still a youngun.  I was just shy of 22, and lookin’ back, I stayed a youngun probably another 22 years before I got into the next stage of life, “Youngun Plus One!”  Here this youngun was sittin’ in what I thought was the fastest thing on the road.  We’ll get to the fast tales in a minute, but she was fast that day.  Remember “Redline Tiger Paws?”  That was the tire of the day; wide with a thin red stripe.  Yessiree; fast car with wide tires on rally rims.  I was King.  Move over Elvis.

The downside of this was one week after I committed my paycheck to GM for the next 3 years, I drove by the gas station where this mechanic worked, and there was the Galaxie.  You’d never have known there was anything wrong with it.  This mechanic was a superb auto body man, and I’d not known such things were possible.  And this gas station was on the just down the corner from the apartment where we lived and I had to pass by my favorite car every day, but it wasn’t my car anymore.  Sad, sad, sad!  But I got over it.  I’d step on the gas a bit harder, hopin’ to spin a tire, but it never happened, but at least I got outta sight of that Ford, and finally I got mostly over it. 

It wasn’t too long and I got my first job out of school on a chicken farm in Farmington NC.  This is where I learned the real meaning of fast.  Up till that time, I hadn’t been too, too excited about drivin’ much more’n 10 or 15 miles over the speed limit.  I’d had a couple speedin’ tickets, and it didn’t do to pay more insurance than I needed.  Sin’s a bitch.  Do it once and it multiplies!  I speed and it cost the ticket and court costs, then you git this li’l note from the insurance company that some sumbitch at motor V had to go tell on you, and you git to pay the insurance company about four times the cost of the speedin’ ticket for three more years!  Anyhow, me’n the wife are carrin’ two boys who were workin’ for me back to Winston one evenin’, when I come up on this ’66 Dodge Charger.  Hmmm.  For some reason, when I got along side, that’s where I stayed.  Wasn’t goin’ too fast, but I wasn’t passin’ either.  This is how I drove then, and not much has changed, but I did have a heavy foot.  I’d drive 10 miles over the limit, which was usually pretty safe from tickets.  It was always in the fast lane.  Cars seem to travel in packs just like dogs.  You ride down the road, and you’ll come up on a mess of cars all bunched up in both lanes.  I’d inevitably have to work my way through the pack, then I’d break free and git on down the road for about two or three miles till I got to the next pack and the cycle would start again.  This evenin’, there were but two cars on the road; me an’ him and we’re both about dumb, ‘cause we both thought we had the best and the fastest.  Hell, I know I had the best car on the road, and never thought about the fastest till that moment. Side by side we were doin’ about 65 in a 55 zone, and I saw his car jump!  The race is on!  YeeHaa!  Git’er Goat, and through the firewall goes my foot.  My toes are pullin’ all the stops outta that carburetor, an’ you could color us gone.  He jumped first, but it wasn’t for long and I’m passin’ him like he’s sittin’ still.  I’m hearin’ “Beach Boys 409” and ever other fast car song I know from those days, and a-grinin’ to beat the band.  My first race and I won…or thought I did.  I looked in the mirror, and here he comes…slowly, but surely, here he comes.  I’m whippin’ that Goat for all she’s got, an’ there just ain’t anymore left.  I look to my left, an’ sadly, but surely, there he goes.  He’s not goin’ much faster, but like an ice cream cone in the sunlight, it’s drippin’ faster’n I can lick.  I hadn’t even looked down at the speedometer till then, and I like to have soiled my drawers, for I’d run outta numbers, an’ the hands on the clock was gettin’ near to startin’ the second go-round.  Interpolatin’ the empty space between 120 and zero, I figger I was doin’ 135 and he was doin’ 140 comin’ across the Yadkin River bridge on I-40.  Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, but I couldn’t complain about those numbers.  I suppose the saddest part was I had witnesses.  I coulda made a good tale outta that’n otherwise.  Probably the best part of the whole deal is we lived through it.  Some sad things do have a good endin’s.

Chapter Two

When I left that job, we bought us a mobile home, and moved to Kernersville.  Farmin’ is now history.  I’m in a factory makin’ more money workin’ 60 hours a week, getting’ overtime, than I was workin’100 hours a week on the farm with only two days off every other week.  This city work spoilt me! 

And don’t you know, my next door neighbor is a mechanic.  And wouldn’t you know, I need some mufflers.  And of course, I wanted some loud ones.  Well, they didn’t start out loud.  They had a nice rumble; kind of throaty without the awful loud noise that brought a lot of police attention.  The cops can hear one roar for a mile, and just sit there waitin’ for you to round that bend through their radar.  Onliest thing is, for a whole week, I had a headache.  It actually took that long for me to get adjusted to the rumble. 

It didn’t take long, and those Redline Tiger Paws were slicker’n racin’ slicks.  There wasn’t enough tread on those tires to say “grace” over.  They might have been pretty tires in the beginning when there was a lot of tread showin’, but they didn’t last a year.  The year was 1972 and the new thing was radial tires.  I remember for $136 cash money, I was able to get a set of blems(blemish tires with something that kicked ‘em off the inspection line at the factory, but still safe enough to market.)  Who’d know, but me, and as the sayin’ goes, “ten dollars is ten dollars, and I wasn’t rich just yet, nor famous, and all good looks did was git me in trouble, not transportation.   So I’ve got me a fine car that goes fast, sounds bad, and turns on a dime.  One thing about radial tires that you wouldn’t notice today, because that’s the only kind of tire there is, but back when we were still debatin’ over whether a tire had two ply side walls or four ply and “belted tires” had just added 5,000 miles to a set of tires when if you got 10,000 miles outta set of tires, you got more’n you’d expected and you’d brag for a month at that.  But that first set of radials took a few corners to get use to them.  They cut sharper’n normal.  If you weren’t careful or slowed down quite enough, you’d swear you’s up on two wheels in a turn.  Lordy they were quick.  I’ll tell you how good they were; I don’t remember the next set of tires I bought, they lasted that long.  It was at least two years and nearly 40,000 miles.  Worth ever cent of that $136, wasn’t it? 

While expeditin’ material to and through the pipe fabrication plant for power plants around the country, I became acquainted with an engineer, who became my best friend.  Being the project engineer on a power plant project in Astoria, New York, I spoke with him often regarding material for his site. After a year of speaking with him over the phone, Zac comes to the factory on business, and we finally get to meet.  I’m talkin’ to Zac for a year now, and hear this accent from who knows where with a strong nasal tone and sounded sorta like he’d be from Cincinnati.  First impressions on the phone are misleadin’ as the dickens, for I’ve got this image in my mind of a short little feller.  Anyhow, short, he ain’t.  He’s taller’n me an’ I’m a smidgen over 6-3.  He’s 6-5 if he’s an inch.  He’s even got a mustache like me.  If you didn’t know better, you stand us side by side and you’d think we were brothers.  My own mother told me that, when she saw a picture of us together years later.  But listen’ to me, then listen’ to him and you’d know we weren’t from the same litter.  First thing I know, Zac’s talkin’ about his job an’ how he needs some help, an’ what’d I think about comin’ to work for him as an engineering clerk or field engineer.  Bein’ the worldly man I am; man heck, I’m but 23, and haven’t thought about supper yet.  Why’d I even have a thought such as workin’ somewhere else, much less in New York City?  That was way yonder across more pastures than I’d imagined.  I don’t know ‘bout this.  To be asked such a thing outta the clear blue, when I’m right happy here in NC in my mobile home an’ all, and got a nice car ’n wife ‘n child not yet a year old.  Next thing I know, I’ve had my first airplane ride.  I went on one of those job interviews.  Just picture the old television show, “HeeHaw” and the segment titled “Goober and Gaylord go to Hollywood!  That’s me all over again, ‘ceptin’ I’m goin’ to New Yawk. 

Shucks, I didn’t even know what a job interview was.  When I left that chicken farm, I heard about this factory needin’ help, and I needed work, so I grabbed my hat n’ gloves n’ walked in the front door to this big office buildin’.  See, my Aunt’s neighbor told her that her son was workin’ as a laborer in this place paintin’ pipe.  I didn’t know what pipe was, but I’d heard of paint an’ figgered I could get one on the other, had I a brush.  The receptionist asked who I wanted to see.  I told her, I didn’t have narry idea, but that I heard y’all needed some help an’ hear I am.  Comin’ off the farm, that’s how we worked.  You had a neighbor needin’ help in hayin’ or corn silage season, you just went over an’ helped.  No questions asked.  Next thing I know, I was handed a job application.  I filled it out, and in come this fellow in charge of the laborers.  Anyhow, he saw where I had a college degree, and was over qualified for him, so he passes me off to another department head.  I explained to this next feller I’m needin’ work, and heard they needed folks.  I even told him I was lookin’ for somethin’ temporary, for I was lookin’ for another farm, but in the meantime, I needed to eat.  He decided he could use me, and for the high pay of $2.74 an hour, I could work for him in the material control department.  I never really looked back.

 They liked me, and I liked them, and off we go on the next phase of life; that of the construction circuit from pillar to post, hilltop to valley and across more rivers than I can count, but the Goat carries me well.  Labor Day 1973, I come off Route 22(this was before Interstate 78 cut across New Jersey from Pennsyltucky to Newark,) through the toll booth onto the northern end of the New Jersey Turnpike, rounded the turn and looked out onto bumper to bumper traffic across what seemed like 10 lanes and for as far as I could see.  Sweet Jesus, what a sight.  I rolled down the winder and spit a mouthful of tobacco juice, and said to myself, “it sure didn’t look like this from the air!”  That “parkin’ lot” will forever more be my first recollection of life up “Nawth.” 

Chapter Three

The next 8 months were work, work, work.  I didn’t really have time to get to know the big city too much.  Then one day, the boss came through the office sayin’, “as they say in the construction trade, “don’t send your laundry out this week, ‘cause you won’t be here to pick it up.”  An hour later we were told the job was bein’ shut down.  God Bless ConEd, was all I could think.  I was scared.  I cried. I really did.  Here I’d left the comforts of home, gathered all my eggs, put ‘em in that Goat and brought ‘em to the Big Apple.  Being new to this line of work, I didn’t know folks took care of their own and didn’t just ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater.’  A couple days and a lot of prayers and worryin’ later, I was told of a reassignment to a powerhouse in Stilesboro, Georgia.  I had to hunt the map on that’un, and when I did, I didn’t know they made dots on maps that small!  And fact it was, for by the end of the week, I was drivin’ through this dot of a town in northwest Georgia to the biggest power plant I’d ever seen.

Goat was home.  The roads were two lane and made for fun.  There’s a sayin’, “I love to see a poor man have a rough time.”  That was life in Georgia.  I didn’t have two nickels to rub together, so every day was a gift from somewhere.  My financial life was naught.   I didn’t have a clue about how to manage money.  My good parents were absolutely the best in the world with regards to ethics and morals and teachin’ how to be good and do good an’ all that, but we never were taught money, and that has foller’d me from daylight to dark all the days of my life.  Fortunately, I get spells of common sense reckonin’, and straighten out messes brought on by financial neglect, and this venture was the beginning of one of those messes.  It tripped the balance of life and next thing you know, there was a divorce.  I was embarrassed, for I was the first person in my family that did such a thing.  I was sho’nuff poor, and sho’nuff was havin’ a rough time, but much like the sayin’, “What don’t kill us, makes us strong.”  This was one more buildin’ block of my life’s structure, and I have built a fine house, let me tell you; a fine ‘un! 

While I didn’t have nickels, I could find pennies.  We lived in a trailer park that was plumb nearly in the departure to runway 36 of the Cartersville airport.  Curiosity got the best of me, carried me there one Saturday afternoon, an’ next thing I know, I’m goin’ for a $5 air ride.  Then, God bless him, the pilot says put your hands on the yoke and “git yer money’s worth; you might as well fly as ride.”  So that was the beginning of my flyin’.  I met another fellow at the airport, also in flight trainin’, who just happened to live in the same trailer park.  Now Terry ran a ‘fillin’ station up on the four lane.  He and I became good friends, and lo and behold, I got to help him out a time or two at the fillin’ station.  I’d pump gas and he’d pay me in gas.  It worked out.  Meanwhile, I’d put Goat on the rack and change oil, an’ such.  Once while on the rack, I hit the exhaust with a wrench, to find one muffler sounded hollow and one still had some meat in it.  Remember those glass packs I had installed about a year or so ago?  Well, they’re near the end of life as we know it in muffler years.  But my pennies bein’ spent on $5 plane lessons, I decided to swap the mufflers around so the other side could ‘git hollow’ too.  Basically now, I was runnin’ straight pipes off the Goat and she sounded some fierce.  The dog wouldn’t bite, but she barked well, an’ often late into the night. 

Having separated from wife, I experienced the Ramada and the Holiday Inn bars and dancehalls over in the next county in Rome, Georgia.  Bein’ raised at the foot of the Cross, I didn’t have much chance to go to such establishments in my growin’ up years.  Oh, I’d get a beer in college at one of the many beer halls along Hillsborough Street in Raleigh, but that was the extent of my wildness; very tame.  This was the first time I’d experienced liquor by the drink.  North Carolina doesn’t pass such a law for another 11 years (1985!)  This dog had now been turned loose, and he was ridin’ a Goat.  I fell “into a burin’ ring of fire,” but thankfully, it was only a flash in the pan.  I got a taste of the Devil an’ he got a taste o’ me.  I don’t really know which one spit the other out first, but luckily I liked my jaw full of Redman and Skoal better.  30 days o’ Saturday night sinnin’, liquor n’ women and I got a call to return to NYC and the job I’d left the year prior….time to pick up that laundry!! 

Chapter Four

The trip back North was a dilly.  It started out as a bad finish to a night full of fun, frolic and last, but not least…a snoot full of tequila as Terry and his wife and me and a li’l gal, Nancy celebrated my last night in Georgia.  On the way back to Cartersville from the Rome Ramada, there’s this old, old covered bridge across the Etowa River.  Terry’s no more sober than I am and I’m seein’ umpteen of everything.  I know we hit the turn comin’ onto that bridge on two wheels an’ still get through it without scrapin’ the sides just like threadin’ a needle.  One ‘o God’s little miracles, it was; just one of many I’ve seen. 

The next mornin’, I’m wearin’ a size 27 hat.  You’ll never find one in the hat store that big, but that was it that Saturday.   Actually, I think it was a kettle drum turned upside down with a hole through the hide for my head.  The blood rushin’ through my veins sounded like the old Colorado River runnin’ wild through the canyons.  Today, this many years later, I feel that pain.  I’ll never know how I survived that day.  Slowly an’ step by step, I loaded everything I owned in that car; everything, including a small console TV.  I had to take the passenger bucket seat out, invert it and put it in the back so I could get the TV in the car.  Then, from the rear view mirror and going around to the right, ending behind the driver’s seat, I packed and I packed clothes and things.  No boxes; didn’t have room.  Every little space was packed full.  When I was through, there wasn’t room for a ball of cotton.  Oh, did I mention I had air shocks!  For the first time, I needed ‘em! 

It was a six hour trip to Winston-Salem. I remember pullin’ into the drive around 3:30 PM Sunday afternoon.  It was a miserable drive, but what was bad was another 11 hours in front of me.  Poor Ma loved me to death, and I’m sure she saw what looked like a burnt match stick getting’ outta the Goat.  I felt burnt too.  I can only imagine I looked like I’d been pulled through a knothole backwards.  She had me a pot of pinto beans on the stove; my favorite, but my stomach was in revolt and if I ate one servin’, it was one more than I wanted.  I took a nap, and shortly before dark, left for New York. Ma, poor thing, musta thought I’d sho’nuff gone to the dogs, seein’ me pull away that evenin’.  

Somewhere along the way, I stopped for gas and noticed I had only one headlight.  Great I said, for I’ll get a ticket for that somewhere tonight, then I banged the fender with my palm…bingo; the light came back on; saved by one more little miracle. Every hundred miles or so, I’d have to stop and bang the fender to ‘wake it up.’  Little did I know, but I was wakin’ myself up for the drive.  It was a long night, but Goat and an untold quantity of truck stop coffee got me through the night.  I hit the jobsite in New York about daylight Monday morning.  I suppose it was good to be alive, but somehow, I just didn’t feel enthused.  It was tough keeping the drama of the last couple months hid from the world.  Me an’ Goat were one.  We’d both seen better times an’ the miles were startin’ to show. 

Eventually, I saved enough pennies for a headlight.  I found a basement apartment, which I know was one of those illegal places folks in New York hide undisclosed tenants for some tax free income.  What did I care; for $35 a week, I had a place to sleep, wash an’ eat. Sometimes I got to do all three in the same day.  Did I mention finances was the straw that broke the camel’s back and ended the marriage?  With the aid of my good friend’s wife, we sat down an’ put Phil on a budget.  After all the bills I owed, I had $25 a week left to buy food and gas.  $25 a week in New York City…but I was in Queens…it was manageable.  Part of my budget plan was write all my creditors a letter of woe, and tell them I was broke, but I was going to pay them what I could till they were paid.  I don’t know how, but I did it.  I did nothing but work, go home and start over the next day.  Every payday, I’d sit down and write checks for all but $25. 

My friend Zac and his wife were my best friends.  They took me under their wing, and took care of me, providing me support and friendship; two things I needed the most.  Cindy worked in a dialysis medical center and through her; I got myself a blind date.  I believe we only went to the movies, but it was a date.  It was a one date relationship.  Goat was well behaved, but he was loud.  All the other goats and taxis in New York were jealous.  Driving that car down the street was like a new bull comin’ on the farm.  I’d pull up to a light, another car would pull up, listen to the rumble, an’ I’d notice the other car start to twist as the driver would race the engine, tryin’ to engage me.  All their car would do was rock, but I’m sittin’ in Mr. Rumble and Roar.  Even if they had glass packs, you couldn’t hear ‘em over Goat’s straight pipes.  Every stop light was like the Christmas Tree at the drag strip.  You’d watch for that caution light on the cross street, the rockin’ would start, you have the green and “bang,” we’re off.  And we’re off with a roar.

Here I sit with a pretty nurse, mindin’ my own business, tryin’ to behave, and this Puerto Rican taxi driver pulls up beside me.  The clock is tickin’.  Soon, his taxi starts a-rockin’.  I look over an’ we smile that smile and nod.  We look back and watch the light….tick, tick, tick…yellow…you count one...two and jam your foot into the carburetor on the anticipation of the delayed green.  Remember that console television I just had to bring with me when I left Georgia, and how I had to remove the seat to make room for it.  And I even put the seat back….but, did I bolt ‘er down?  Noooo.  I forgot that little part.  All four barrels of that Rochester Quadro Jet aren’t fully open an’ all I see outta the corner of my eye are a pretty set of legs as they fly up and she flies back to the rear seat!  Kodak moment extraordinaire, it was.   Forget the race.  It’s all I can do to get the car stopped and rescue her from the oblivion of the back seat.  I couldn’t have been more embarrassed.  I didn’t have the nerve to ask her out after that.  Elaine, I have a drink to you now and again in remembrance of that night and that light! 

Chapter Five

The next few months are a dry spell in my courtin’ life.  After unloadin’ Elaine, it was a good while before I even let anyone ride with me. 

One mornin’ in August, I’m in bumper to bumper traffic on the Grand Central Parkway nearin’ LaGuardia Airport, when I tap the brakes for the stopped traffic, and no pedal.  Not narry nothin’!  Sweet Jesus, what’s happenin’ here?  I start pumpin’ like I was on a life savin’ foot pump, thinkin’ that’ll work, and what do you know, but it does!  I got brakes!  HooRay!  She can stop.  I’m reluctant to hit the gas, but after several successful pumpin’ exercises, I find she’ll stop every time.  The only thing is, she stops right quick, when the brakes do grab, and the other thing is, I have to drive about 5 car links ahead of myself in preparation for that awful quick stop.  Success doesn’t spoil me any, but it sure did keep me alive for a good while.  Heck, I even developed good tone in that one leg, just from pumpin’ the brakes.  If anyone was watchin’ from the adjacent lanes probably figgered “that poor fellow has some sort of nervous condition.  Bless his heart.”  An’ they were right.  I was nervous that Goat wouldn’t stop, but I was pretty gentle and he obeyed the reins, even though he felt like he was getting’ kicked. 

One day George, a coworker, needed a lift to work.  Me livin’ right close was the answer to his prayers.  We’re drivin’ along the same Grand Central Parkway at a good clip.  You could always do that till just about LaGuardia, where you went from 50 MPH to bumper to bumper and stop n’ go for a mile before our exit.  You should have seen the look on George’s face, heck you didn’t need to see it, you could hear the look, the first time I had to stop.  “Don’t worry George.  It works ever time.  I been at this for a couple months now.  There’s permanent creases in the armrest and his foot prints in the floor board on the passenger side from the couple days he rode with me.  George was a fine fellow.  He knew the condition. He had a wife, five daughters, two still at home, and a bitch dog.  He knew poor, and empathized with me. 

Anyhow, my last tour of duty on this project, prior to movin’ to Georgia, I needed a ride to work, and George came to my aide.  That was back in the days when you had a set of snow tires on another set of rims for the winter months.  George needed a rim, an’ wouldn’t you know I found him one…layin’ on the side of the Grand Central Parkway.  See, when George picked me up those several times, I’d just meet him down at the intersection of the Long Island Expressway and the Grand Central Parkway.  He’d slow down an’ I’d hop in and off we’d go.  I look back at that, and wonder how I survived not havin’ been run over day after day.  Anyway, I came across this tire layin’ off to the side of the GCP.  I determined it would fit George’s can, so I grab it an’ was rollin’ it along one of those mornin’s, and threw it in the car when George slowed down.  You’d have thought I bought him a new watch.  Shucks, we were both proud of savin’ a nickel.

As it turned out, I pumped those brakes for five months.  It was only the master cylinder, not a broken line, so it never did give out completely.  I didn’t have the money to get a replacement master cylinder, so I made do with a lot of luck and more prayers than Carter has little liver pills.  And I had good friends.  Yes, I’ve been blessed with good friends, and my best friend, Zac, gave me a Master Cylinder for Christmas that year!!  I didn’t know how to act.  I’d never gotten any present I ever needed more.  We snuck the car in the power house one night and installed the new part.  Joy to the World; I had brakes.  I suppose I wasn’t the only one that was happy.  It’s a thousand wonders I didn’t simply crash and burn sometime in those five months.

Havin’ a Rochester Quadra Jet turned out to be more of an issue than a failed master cylinder.  There was this plastic choke pull out, that invariably failed more’n once.  Fiddlin’ around with it when I had trouble gittin’ ‘er started, I stumbled on an answer.  If I left the door open, I could fire ‘er up, and before she died, I could run around, pop the hood, and reach in an pull out the choke lever manually just in time, and she’d keep a-runnin.’  I didn’t know these choke pull outs were very inexpensive, but it didn’t much matter.  Remember, I was doin’ good to sleep, wash and eat all in the same day on my $25 budget.  Besides, I only started that car twice a day; goin’ to and comin’ from work.  It just took me a couple extra steps.  Five months of pumpin’ brakes will prepare you for most any calamity. 

Unfortunately, the vacuum seal in that choke pull out would become so deteriorated to the point that while drivin’, I got to where I had to throw it in neutral, hit the brake, then race the engine at stop lights and stop signs or worse, in stop n’ go traffic.  That was the worst.  On the way to an’ from work on the Grand Central Parkway, I used all my limbs to keep ‘er goin’.  One hand on the wheel, one on the gear shift, one foot on the brake and the other pumpin’ the gas. If I looked like I had a nervous condition with just the brakes aliment previously, I looked like a sidewalk Preacher, forever more shellin’ down the corn in a scaldin’ sermon.  It wore me out drivin’ that Goat.  I was at an auto parts store one time gettin’ some oil, when I mentioned my dilemma to the counter clerk.  He correctly diagnosed the choke pull out and provided me a new one for a couple dollars.  After I put that jewel on and cranked ‘er up without runnin’ around like a blind dog in a meat house, I felt like kickin’ myself all the way to the bank. It’s amazin’ how rich you can feel spendin’ but two dollars.

I run the brakes a bit long too.  She’d stop, but it got to where I near ‘bout had to drag my feet to come to a complete stop.  There got to be such a sound more like the gnashin’ of teeth sound of metal on metal instead of metal on brake pads.  I pushed the brake pads to the limit too.  By the time I got around to fixin’ them, it was not only brake pads, but drums and rotors thrown in for good measure. 

In the next year, the most I did was continue to burn those glass packs completely clean of any mufflin’ fiber.  She was pure straight pipes and sounded some bad, but honestly, she didn’t have the power to pull a sick whore off a piss pot.  Mind you, she’s got some age on ‘er now.  Much like the recent country song, “she ain’t as good as she once was, but she’s as good once as she ever was!”  If I got ‘er to the top of a hill, chances were she’d roll to the bottom; under power or not, and I could get ‘er stopped.  I did start courtin’ George’s daughter, an’ it got to be a joke ‘tween her sisters about how loud the car was.  “Fran, here comes Phil; you can hear him three blocks away.”  Love is grand an’ has no ears, and my life simply turned another corner. 

Me an’ Goat survived NYC and moved on to Virginia and the next job.  I worked that budget well and got all those bills paid, and actually started puttin’ money away for a change.  I kept to the $25 livin’ life, but now and again, I’d git me a pizza instead of a can of beanie weenies or Vienna Sausages and crackers.  I was steppin’ in high cotton by the time I got to Franklin, Virginia.  After 175,000 memorable miles, I traded for a long nosed ’74 Grand Prix.  She was purty, but she didn’t have near the personality Goat had!  Amen.