Never the Same #53 Engines and Easter

“Don’t think about those things you fear, just be glad to be here” FC Kahuna

Cue: “Hayling” https://youtu.be/_WjeWsiujmU?si=mYMrPabA4Mu7JhyE

 

            Kirk proceeded as usual with his work and his deep automotive ponderings except that now he worried about picking up his newly rebuilt engine and paying for said engine. From the start, he knew the machine work would be expensive and even though he had known approximately how much it would cost, hearing the actual dollar figure on the phone made him weak in the knees. He had mentioned that he had taken the engine to the machine shop to Sarah Elizabeth, but she wasn’t really in the same gearhead-type arena as he. As you may remember she’d rather be riding a horse in an arena and though they had differing hobbies, he had an longsuffering thing for Kirk which always amazed him. Of course, brother-in-law Jon who helped him load the engine before he took it to the shop knew about the plan, but Kirk’s brother-in-law wasn’t a person who’d actually care nor talk about it. What I’m getting at here is that no one else knew what Kirk was up to with his stock car. 

            Kirk planned to pick up his engine on the following Saturday, so he went through his week living with a mix of anxiety, dread, and excitement. Not that it would affect him in anyway, he had almost forgotten that Sunday was Easter Sunday, but at his age and attitude the holiday didn’t mean that much to him anymore except for the promise of a few chocolates.

                   That Friday, he went by the small local bank to get a money order for the machine shop. As a matte rof routine He tried to stay away from the bank, only dropping his check in the drive thru for deposit, because a young woman he had graduated with now worked at the bank. Well, worked there with her older brother because their parents owned and managed the bank. She, being part of the Upper Crust of the small town, never acknowledged and would never acknowledge Kirk as being part of her graduation class. Well, he couldn’t have been in the same school class as her because Kirk didn’t exist at all in her eyes. Who says there isn’t a class division in America? Anyway, he got his money order with guarded, furtive eyes without becoming outright defensive and personally imperiled by those who might look down their noses at him.

            Saturday. Kirk, now with his money order secured, suddenly became more excited for his purchase than anything else he had done before. He still harbored doubts that the engine work would propel him to oval track stardom, nevertheless, the concept of an honest to goodness racing engine developed just for him spiked his emotions. That being said, he couldn’t ever forget that there were other performance parts to purchase in the near future to make this new engine perform. Hence, that’s what he thought about on the long drive to the machine shop.  When he pulled into the shop’s parking lot, Kirk could not remember how he got there not recalling the roads, turns, or traffic signals. Some drives are like that. Afterwards, you have to wonder if there had been a perilous situation would you have reacted correctly, defensively? It might give you a chill of unsurety of your personal safety.

            Standing tall while taking a deep breath, Kirk strode into the Gan-Sen performance machine shop. Kirk thought walking up to the counter the guy would remember him, but no, as Kirk realized how many people must go in and out of the shop. After waiting on one other customer, who, to Kirk, didn’t look like a racer, the counter man turned to Kirk.

            “May I help you, sir?”

            “Kirk Biscuit. Picking up my engine that’s supposed to be done.”

            “Ah, I remember you now. Sportsman engine, right?” He said, pulling out a stack of work orders. Kirk nodded. “Yep, here you are. We gave you the amount due. Are you going to pay in full?”

            “Yeah, sure. I thought I had--.” Kirk let his thought hang there. He pulled out his wallet and slid the money order across the glass-topped counter.

            “Very good. Have you had engine work done here before?”

            “Ah, no,” said Kirk with a shake of his head.

            “Okay, we have a brochure that explains pre-run oil priming and break in procedures to ensure you have a good, long-running motor.”

            “Okay, I appreciate that.”

            “Thanks for your business. Just pull around to the overhead door to pick up your engine. Have a good racing season.”

            “Yeah, thanks. Plan to but I have a lot of work on the car yet.”

            “Yep, that’s racing and building a car. Have a good one.”

            “And you as well.”

            Kirk stepped up into his pink van and sat there a moment. He had faraway visions of wonderfulness. The engine when he had dropped it off all those weeks ago wasn’t a horrible mess, but it wore battle scars from the junkyard and before from miles on the highway. When Kirk dropped it into his stock car, he just took a can of Gunk sprayed it down and hosed it off as well as he could to get the majority of grease and oil off of it. Most of the paint had worn off over the years and Kirk didn’t bother repainting it for those few races he ran late in the season. His heart fluttered with anticipation as he drove around back to the shop’s overhead door.

            Kirk rang the buzzer and in a couple moments later the door jerked and started raising with a noisy rattle. One of the machinists stood there waiting for the door to fully open.

            “Kirk Biscuit, I presume,” the man said with a grin.

            Kirk nodded and said, “Yep!”

            “We have your engine over here,” he gestured while walking around the end of the completed engines. All types of shiny, painted engines sat on new wooden pallets in various states of machine work from short blocks to fully assembled engines each covered in clear plastic.

            The machinist paused a moment and reached down at one pallet to read the ticket attached to the plastic. “Here we go,” he pulled the plastic away. “This is yours.”

            Kirk momentarily paused, taken aback by the appearance of his engine. Painted in Chevrolet orange that gleamed with a thick, smooth gloss. It looked better than a factory engine that had never been run.

            “Okay, I’ll walk you through what we did to your engine as you specified. First off after disassembly, we boiled the block out to clear all the water jackets and oil passages. We bored each cylinder, matching each bore to a piston making sure the weights of the pistons with rods were exactly the same. We honed each cylinder twice using different course stones.”

             Kirk bent down to examined the cross-hatch honing pattern which he deemed perfect. At the same time, he admired the shiny head surface that had been “decked.”

            “We cleaned up the rods and crankshaft, and balanced the whole rotating assembly. See here,” he pointed out some machining on the crankshaft throws and the flywheel. “Where we had to remove material to balance the whole assembly. Here, give the flywheel a turn,” the machinist said with a proud inflection.   

            Kirk kneeled down while expecting to throw his weight into rotating the engine. He was amazed when the engine spun nearly effortlessly. Kirk smiled huge. “Wow! That is amazingly smooth!”

            “Yes, sir. We do good work here. Your engine there should be bulletproof. These engines don’t put huge horsepower at high revs, but you can’t spin ‘er up to any rev you want and this guy won’t come apart!”

            “Nice job!”

            The couple other machinists turned to Kirk and gave him a nod.

            “Let’s load her up,” the guy said, heading for the small forklift.

            After loading the engine, the guy inquired if Kirk had the information about priming the oil and break in procedures. Kirk said he did and shook the guy’s hand. He felt hyped!

            Before seeing his future possibilities, Kirk wondered if this good-sized investment would lead to his and his stock car’s resurrection. But we know Kirk is not exceptional in any way.

 

            Easter. To Kirk, the holiday always meant Easter baskets with chocolate bunnies and jelly beanies, but that was only one side of the holiday. As we covered before, Kirk young life was in a religious household. Kirk’s father demanded that they attended church every Sunday in a Lutheran church in the local village that had about 85 regular parishioners. As a youth, despite being forced to attend religious training in “Sunday School” Kirk had a little devil in him. That means various means concocted to avoid going to church. He could never quite pull off the “I’m sick” charade and propping nails under the family station wagon’s tires never produced a flat tire. All in all, Kirk learned early on that undoubtedly, he would attend church service followed by the age-appropriate religious training afterward. The regular, mind-numbing Sunday schedule changed a bit for Easter.

            Of course, Easter was/is an important event celebrated for the single biggest religious/historical event that doesn’t have to be explained in this story. Anyway, Kirk half looked forward to Easter at church never mind the basket of goodies that always came later at home. Church Service on Easter Sunday began super early hence the designation of “Easter sunrise service.” Kirk as a chubby kid didn’t like getting up early to don suit and tie, but there he was nevertheless. The pastor always tried to keep the sermon upbeat with the uplifting message and short to the point for everyone, especially Kirk, who looked forward to breakfast.  Even though the smell of food and upbeat sermon should but didn’t keep everyone awake including Kirk’s father who nodded off more than once. 

            After the service, the worshipers filed out all of which had to shake the pastor’s hand following the enticing aroma of breakfast. To reiterate, back then when Kirk was a preteen he was downright chubby�"he was fat, so, no doubt he liked to eat! Every Easter, the menu remained the same: fried ham, hash browns, toast and Kirk’s nemesis in food, fried eggs. The food was always prepared by the elder men of the church though he couldn’t remember his father ever helping out in the kitchen. Kirk at all ages avoided the eggs, but especially at his chubby years, Kirk would chow down on the carbs like hash browns and toast with a healthy side of a ham. So, it was just like that until Kirk headed into his later teens. Kirk’s last attendance of Easter at church had him working in the kitchen. It wasn’t that Kirk pictured himself doing Easter food preparation for the rest of his life because he definitely didn’t plan on attending the church for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, he thought volunteering would be a righteous exercise instead of just chowing down with his family one more time. 

            And so fellow brethren, it came to pass that the very next Easter, Kirk’s family invited the aunts, uncles and cousins to attend church, breakfast, and dinner. Kirk’s grandfather stated that he wasn’t going to church, so Kirk in turn, stated he was staying home with his grandfather. Both Kirk and his grandfather, you might say were cut from the same cloth in saying that they were stoic men of few words. Of course, not much conversation took place while the rest of the family dressed in their Easter finery, the women and girls in bright pastels and matching hats and marched off to church. Flowers abounded.

            The one area where grandfather and grandson connected remained their love of TV. Kirk’s grandfather, bless his soul, was celebrated for his talent in artistry with paint by number and various art projects like wall hangings constructed with burnt matchsticks and yarn. Kirk didn’t appreciate his artistry, but he never forgot that grandpa repaired his toy John Deere tractor when Kirk was just a tyke. Grandpa is remembered by Kirk as a fine old quiet gentleman, and he could emulate grandpa as a future sense role model, but Kirk doesn’t desire to look that far ahead or think he’d ever become THAT old.

            Anyhow, Kirk found his Easter basket quite easily in the living room bureau’s end compartment the very same compartment that held a Halloween mask that had scared the wits out of young Kirk. Maybe his mother hid the basket there on purpose. I wonder… That year, his uncle never found his basket on his own because they hid it in a location Kirk’s uncle never ventured into, the washing machine. After a week, Kirk’s aunt finally gave in and told uncle where it was. Maybe uncle had more respect/knowledge of the washing machine after that but I doubt it.

            I guess Kirk remained pretty much the same after picking up his expensive engine and going through another Easter, but things in Kirk’s realm are going to ramp up in the near future.