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L(BC)ove at first sight

To: spridgets@autox.team.net
Subject: L(BC)ove at first sight
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 23:41:00 EDT
In a message dated 6/30/00 10:00:07 PM SA Western Standard Time, 
spritenut@Exit109.com writes:

<< how many of you jumped on the first
 > LBC you looked at?  C'mon, 'fess up!! >>

Frank,
     My first two LBCs were first-sighters...and there were others in the 
passing parade.....  In  1965, when I was a 140 pound high school junior, 
hitch-hiking from Lakewood to Freehold to catch a bus back home to Avon,  I 
saw a  pre-war Harley that looked  so heavy I just knew if it ever fell over 
it would crush me like road pizza.  Sitting there in the front yard of an old 
Mom and Pop junkyard  on hiway 9 in Southard. I left a $10 deposit, and came 
back a few days later, paid off the hundred and fifteen dollars I still owed 
,  got it started and drove it home, no license plate, no motorcycle license, 
no helmet, in shorts and flip flops and  a tee shirt, with a flashlight 
strapped to the fork, and a big old car battery in a wooden box behind me  
taking back roads by feel, all the way into Farmingdale, out Belmar Blvd, and 
into Avon, crossing the bridge that my Grandfather tended in his retirement, 
wondering what the chances were he would see me and die from a heart 
attack.... I parked it in the back lot  of Vince Sabias 2 pump Esso station 
on Main St where I pumped gas after school in return for using the lift at 
night to work on my 48 Chevy that I had owned since I was 12 and had kept 
hidden from my parents behind the station for three years (another case of 
LOFS) and drove around town in the wee hours after the patrolman had gone to 
sleep in his cruiser behind See's Candy.... All I could do with the Harley 
was be cool and show it off since it was loud enough to wake the dead, and 
anyone who recalls Avon NJ in the 60s, envisions a town filled with  
busybodies who called the cops when they heard rain hit the sidewalk thinking 
it might be spit from an airplane.  
         One afternoon,  a big beer gutted garage-door sized hulk of a guy 
drives up in a cream topped dark red  Mini with a pair of huge driving lights 
in the grille. I had only seen Minis  in R&T  C&D  (and once at the 
circus.....) It was beyond  love at first sight - it was a primal scream of 
pure envy.... I rode the bike one more time, and all I could think of was 
that Mini..... 
          Actually, he was pretty hot for the Harley, and a few days later, 
he came by again, and  the deal was made - I gave him the bike and about 
$200, and got a store full of parts and a shop manual and some special tools, 
and a thirty second checkout on the carbs.....  My mom, who had known all 
along about the bike was thrilled that I never made it into Hells Angels, and 
she thought the Mini was cute, as did a bunch of girls in school.    I was 
LBC hooked from that day on. Went so far as to get a job at Shore Motors, and 
eventually became the BMC/BL service writer.   I bought another Mini,  a  
bright red pre hydrolastic 850 in really nice shape for $49 at at Reedman in 
Langhorne, PA (Remember the ad's in the Press:  $1999 and under $999 and  
under  $99 and under..Found it at the tail end of the $39/$29/$19 drag 'em 
home specials and just knew I had to have it. )  Had to borrow (beg) $12  
from my dad to pay for the license .  I sold my near perfect 48 Chevy to a 
teacher who probably still has it. 
     My next love/buy at first sight was a 58 MGA which I bought from a 
Monmouth College coed in 67. I was stunned by her graceful lines, and oh 
yeah,  by the car  too,,, Bought it for a then staggering $500. Drove it home 
to show it off. First thing my dad asks is, "Where are the bumpers, son, and 
the grille?" Gee, she had a stunning pair of bumpers when I first looked at 
her. Didn;t notice no grille... just a girlle and I KNOW I couldn;t have 
missed  THOSE bumpers -  must have been something in my eye....
     In 79, a 1600cc  Elva Courier in New Orleans hit me like a ton of 
bricks.  I comitted to  buy  it before I realized that I really couldn't put 
it on the street.  I did anyway. I snookered the inspection by running an MGB 
 thru with a ton of glass-wax on the windscreen.... slid it right off, and I 
hightailed it to another station for the second inspection du jour for the 
B....  
      I remember sweating bullets when the  Sheriff up in Hammond stopped me 
one night and began checking numbers, telling me I wasn't allowed to drive no 
 gocart on the highway... "But it has an inspection sticker and registration 
and insurance, sir..." (remembering to this day that I avoided using the word 
"legal...." ) If it weren't for a  fortuitous head-on collision or some other 
mess up the road, I'd still be in jail, because his radio squawked, and he 
left in a cloud of dust.....  
       I've since bought at least 50 more cars just because they screamed 
"Buy Me!"
and a hundred or more that simply whispered "You want me, if only for a few 
weeks...."  Witness the 67B that has become a potato planter  in the  garden, 
a 78 Midget with gimpy oil pressure,  then recall how close I came to 
stroking you a check for the Spridget racer.....only dear old mom's threat to 
sexually reassign me should I park another project on the old homestead kept 
me from buying it. That and having reached the 13 car limit of the 
false-fronted stockade fence in the back yard, and the 14 car limit at my 
shop.. The embarassment of singing soprano in the church choir could 
eventually be overcome..... Mark Childers 

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