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Watcha Doin? By TeeJay Beam
OUR NEIGHBOR is an elderly man who comes around whenever we work on cars. My brother in law had said that George, my retired neighbor, must have been a mechanic when Henry Ford was a pup. George would show at the garage doorway, then a familiar routine would unfold. First came the “Watcha doin?” We’d simply respond with a “Messin round.” Then came the “Uhh, Izzit broke?” Since the reclamation of an engine’s cylinder head was the task being undertaken, I looked up from the bench as I loosened the tension that my clamp had on a valve spring. “No, I’m just trying to make the whole car like new.” I said. I winked at my brother-in-law, Gary, who thrashed wrenches beneath the old car’s hood. “Don’t lose them keepers.” George cautioned, showing that he’d been down this valve job road before. He continued. “It’d be a sin to hafta dig around the floor fer half a one of them.” “What do you know about sin, George?” I grinned. “Plenty..,” he said. “We all got a bit ya |
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know.” My brother-in-law, knowing that George was a deacon in the church at the corner, decided to wade in… “Sinning you say? I don’t figure I’m doin nothing wrong. I’m just twistin wrenches for a living.” “That’s what most folks think.” said George. As I lifted an intake valve off its seat the old man said, “It’s just like that big ol’ intake valve there.., all we figure is that we need a little bit of room to slip by and pretty soon we’re wobbling pretty bad.” I said, “Yeah, this guide has seen better days.” By this time, George had pulled up an old, antique milk crate that I often used for a seat. He took the intake valve from the bench, sat down and crossed his leg. He looked at the valve. An edge of the face had been burned slightly. “Just like this here valve,” he said, “…we were made for the wear of the life at hand, but we often are headed for a burning. Like this valve, we need to be caught up just in time.” By this time Gary’s curiosity waned while he worked to get the other head from beneath the hood. But, it seemed that respect for the elder man caused him to continue. He piped… “What do ya mean, George?” Well, if we read what Saint Paul wrote to the Romans we hear him |
