Chapter 7

School in three ... two ... one ... tomorrow!

I’m not using the jeep until it snows, the Dodge is for rescuing the jeep. Oil is changed, antifreeze is green and fresh, battery is two years old, brake fluid is new in all cars including Hairy’s 1938 Fords ... god those things are ugly. The Edsel is NOT the worst looking Ford.

Sonny had come up with every General Motors rotary engine ever built ... and ... AND ... the entire production run of GM’s experimental six speed manual transmissions. He was supposed to scrap them but he accidentally mentioned he had possession to Davy. Both trans and engines have the standard Chevrolet V8 bell housing bolt patterns.

Davy said buy them.

I got the mess for six hundred.

Davy took two of the two rotor experimental Vega engines and cobbled them together with one of the transmissions and put the combination in a Vega fastback. What a marvelous car. The Vega body style has always been one of my favorite looks ... a beautiful car with an extremely worthless engine. The four rotor dynoed out at 400 rear wheel horsepower in the car! I bought it.

Something to remember: Wyoming doesn’t salt in the Winter. They sand. Engines wear out long before the body does.

Hairy can keep his Cosmo.

A classy car needs a nice garage.

A 1932 three window needs a nice garage.

I have ordered a new concrete pad for a 60 by 80 insulated, heated GENSteel building in Avocado Green. I asked for automatic snow load removal... 12 12 pitch. Snow doesn’t build up ... it slides off.

The contractor, el Patrón, has guaranteed occupancy by Thanksgiving... 60 days. He must be busy.

As for school, I have books, class schedule, I know what building, which floor and the general location of each classroom. For study, I have my new Smith Corona Coronomatic, a xerox for smudge free copies, a quiet place, and solitude ... my house.

A week ago I was approached by the Department of Education.

“The services have switched to turbine engines. We have had requests for reciprocating aviation engine mechanics. You have several P&W SC-G engines you cannot use. We wish to build an engine shop classroom and shop at Sheridan College. Donate the engines and never worry about the IRS for the rest of your life.”

You bet!

The first day of classes was full of high school antics. For the first week or so of classes, backpacks for book were an open invitation to boob bumps and nipple twisters. Unlike high school, complaints to the administration not only worked, students were sent home to Grow Up. You might have been the darling of your old school ... here you were anonymous. There is a big difference between second year students and freshman. Second year student have survived.

Generally, second year students are in the 19 to 20 year old age group. Due to testing at Tongue River High School, I was a senior at 17, and still 17 for most of my first year at Sheridan College. In my second year I was 18. A year or two is a tremendous gap.

A bit of background, I could have attended nearly any university of my choice. Hairy was willing to pay and I had the scores for it.

I didn’t want to move away from my neighborhood.

The woodiness and green along the creek, the colors of fall, the crunch of walking in the dry snow of winter, the surprise of spring, all were resounding in my heart as I lived and worked in the place I called home.

Where there is water huge trees grow, chokecherries, and willow wands abound. As the swale spreads out along the Wolf, there are cattails and moss and lichens. A flash as a brook trout rises to catch an unwary insect. The stream can be shallow with pebble bottom at one step and 10 or 12 feet deep the next. Yes ... summer is glorious ... and so short. Wyoming is truly the land of nine months of winter and three of road construction.

Fall is muted ... the east is riotous. Here the leaves turn to muted oranges, yellows and red ... but one must look for them lurking in a vast sea of green and brown, pines and grass.