Author Notes

Long May You Run…

At about 95 mph and 4000 rpm, smooth as silk, I start to wonder if that driver’s side cam with that funky journal gets loose will it fly through the firewall like a missile coming for me, or just fly around under the hood and wreck my entire day? Next winter maybe new heads.

I think about the valves, and the valve springs, and seals, and retainers, and keepers. The cam and cam caps and the twenty-eight bolts that hold them down… did I torque each one to twenty two foot pounds? I think I did, all twenty-two bolts, right? Those weird cam sprocket bolts, ninety-two foot pounds and thirty degrees, what’s that about? Why not just one-hundred and twenty foot pounds?

That cam follower I only got in with a bigger pry bar. That made me a little queasy.

The timing must be right, did I get the timing chains right? What about the guides, and those weird tensioners? Fucking Carlos was so busy proving he was right about something, anything, everything, to Mark Baskerville and me I might have forgotten to torque them. Nah, I checked them about 25 times before I put the timing cover back on, I think, I’m pretty sure, but did I tighten those fourteen cover bolts? I hope that gasket is in right, it was kind of weird, and I hope I put that main seal in right. It was different than the original. Thanks Fel Pro, like I don’t have enough anxiety.

What about the spark plugs and those stupid three threads in the aluminum head? Fucking Mustang Forum guys, 14 foot pounds dry, Twenty-two foot pounds with never seize. Make up my mind! What about the one plug in the back on the passenger side. Why’d they angle that plug hole that way. Can you use a universal on a torque wrench?

What about the fuel lines and fuel rails and injectors. Did that one gas leak stop? Did that one leaky O-ring seal. I hope it’s not pumping 93 octane onto the hot head. That might me bad…

The coil packs must be ok, they’d not kill me anyway. The cold air intake, and the mass airflow sensor were good, right? Don’t want any unmetered air coming in. The valve covers and those funky grommets? I hope they don’t leak oil.

How the hell are you supposed to get that harmonic balancer bolt to one-hundred and thirty foot pounds and when the entire car starts to move forward at ninety, in gear with the brake on? That bolt is probably on good enough, right? I won’t come flying off, right? I should retighten that, and those fucking plugs this weekend.

Why the hell didn’t I replace the water pump? The whole top end and front of the engine was torn apart, dude, it was right there! Five fricken bolts! And why didn’t you replace the radiator, it was out, dumbass. Never again will I try to go cheap on a power steering pully tool. Three hours trying to put that damn thing back on, then two minutes with the right tool. Dumbass!

That new belt tensioner said it was from Ford, but it was awfully cheap. It hope it is from Ford. I didn’t see Motorcraft on it anywhere and what about those Amazon hoses? Yeah they are red, and look cool but will they blow two-hundred degree water all over my face one day? That would suck.

Is that crankshaft position sensor, hidden behind the AC compressor, leaking oil? Why didn’t I just gut all that AC crap. It’s a convertible, man. You’ve never used it.

Anyway, this is what I think about at ninty-five miles per hour and four thousand RPMs…

Maybe I should install a new radio, and let the music distract me, but that seems like a lot of work and I’d never hear that small block Ford rumble.

Like Neil Young said, “Long May You Run…”

I Don’t Miss the Life.

I miss the euphoria of seeing the Cape May lighthouse after a day on the bicycle. Two-hundred and eight miles. The last eight counted, too. I never said, “a two hundred mile ride”, it was always the exact number of miles.

Donna ringing that cow bell and laughing all day, “you got this, bro…”

We did it in 12 hours and we did it in 20 hours and all times in between. One year it rained in an unrelenting deluge. The lightning got so bad we had to stop in Egg Harbor and take shelter on some strangers front porch. The poor people inside never come out to confront the smelly guys in spandex standing there sweating. An unplanned stop, just long enough for our legs to stiffen up like boards.

We had 16 flats that year. With 105 miles to go, I was out of spare tires. We stuffed a five dollar bill in the sidewall. It held. We made it to Cape May.

The ride evolved into a crew of three, John, Franko and me. Why these guys continued to be friends with me, to this day, is beyond me.

One year, after a shower I ate so many eggs and hash browns the waitress was concerned for me. John just said, “keep feeding him, he’s quiet when his mouth is full.”

I got really mad at John one year. At 180 miles in he told me we had almost thirty miles left to pedal. I flipped and called him, “a fucking pessimist!”

John had a spreadsheet in the SAG car. If you stopped to piss he would punch in the numbers and remind you that sunset was 8:34 pm…

Another year I told Franko of my plan to kill him and hide his body in that big field along the route before we got to that last WaWa store. When I stopped there I’d tell everyone I just lost him.

Franko said, “shut up and pedal…”

The season ended on Christmas Day and started on New Years Day. Riding in temperatures below zero. Skinny road tires in the snow and ice, because “fitness,” everything was fitness, everything was geared to the “doubles,” a double-century. People think 100 miles on a bike in a day is a lot, so you double it.

By now, mid-May, we’d be doing 400 mile weeks, 140 to 160 training rides on weekends. 120 Saturday and 120 Sunday and 120 Monday – “triple witching weekends.” One year I rode nearly 15,000 miles. That averages about 55 miles a day and I did take a day off now and then.

It never occurred to me the absurdity of riding 160 miles on Saturday, so you would be ready for 200 in a few weeks.

It was always about fitness and sleep and lack of sleep. Worried so much about not sleeping enough you’d not sleep.

Thinking any family trip within 100 miles was “rideable…” I’d just leave 4 hours ahead of anyone.

Then I stopped.

I think the broken bones and the injuries finally caught up.

It was hard for a time.

Something wasn’t right

Then one day I rode my bike for an hour – just one hour – less than 20 miles. A local loop. It was kind of awesome. Then I ate a cheeseburger and didn’t worry about the fat content or carbs in the bun

Then the next day I rode 20 miles again.

I liked my bike. I didn’t hate it. It wasn’t a torture machine. It was fun.

Then one day a group of young studs swarmed me and I just let them ride away.

I got back to the shop three minutes after them. No one died. I wasn’t humiliated.

I miss the euphoria of rolling across a finish line running on fumes.

I don’t miss the life.

And Nothing Happened

Kill a brother in his car, nothing happens.

Lead an insurrection against the government of the United States, nothing happens.

Threaten the life of the Speaker of the House, nothing happens.

Commit tax fraud, nothing happens.

Use the office of the President of the US as a cash cow, nothing happens.

Give a guided tour of the Capitol to terrorists two days before the insurrection, nothing happens.

Let half a million people die by doing nothing to prevent it, nothing happens.

Use Venmo to pay underage girls for sex, nothing happens.

Give the NYS AG boxes of documents proving illegal financial transactions with Russia, nothing happens.

Let the planet slowly fry to a crisp, and push, ‘clean coal,’ nothing happens.

Push a fascist agenda, undermine the constitution, devalue education, nothing happens.

The lesson of the last five years is, to me, I’m just on the wrong team… thing is, I’m not sure what the teams are anymore.

I’m sick of creeps and coward.

Does It, Really?

The problem with politicians is we are conditioned, from a very young age, to believe they act in the best interests of the voters who elected them. That is not what they are about at all. Never has been.

Like killing 50,000 American kids and god knows how many Vietnamese to “keep us safe from communism…”

Power, money, and ego, yes! Your best interests will only be met if and when it benefits them too.

It’s been that way since there have been politicians. If people would realize this, they’d be less disappointed when the people they elect screw them over.

I wonder often, is voting a vital part of the democratic process or a mechanism to fuel the machine with more self-serving jerks, and is that, in fact, the essence of the democratic process?

Biden may be better than Trump, but so is black mold.

I realized this with Nixon. I’ve not been disappointed since Nixon. The opposite actually. I’m never disappointed because I expect them to screw me.

Drowning in the Desert

“Right after my boy drowned, I let it all go to the wind. I ran off to the southwest. I had some friends there, and they offered me a place to stay and try to heal and recover. All I did was get fucked up, day in and day out. Mainly out there in the Saguaro Desert, in that dry heat. That shit will drain the life from you, and leave a man weak and confused.”

“I recall being naked in somebody’s backyard pool, in Mesa, Arizona, 1984, the wrong pool, the wrong house. Tripping my ass off on gobs of peyote mescaline and good Mexican tequila and Negra Modelo beer.”

“From the next house over—the place where I belonged, and the pool I was supposed to be in—the stereo was deafening. Cyndi Lauper’s ‘She Bop’ was telling me, as I struggled to hold my head above the water and not drown; a fear rose in me of being found dead and naked in the neighbor’s pool, the fear that everything I’d ever known or been told about right and wrong, the rule of law and the rules of being a man was wrong.”

“It somehow felt right that I drown, like the boy did, sucking all that warm water into my lungs. By rights, I should have drowned, but I didn’t. All I did was float there in that water, face down, listening to that goddamn song, thinking about my dead boy. Not a day goes by, Shug, I don’t wish I’d died in that pool.”

—Charlie

The Truth is in the Water