Back In The Day – Page 26 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

The Warning

Check out these two men and what they did almost a century ago…folks, you couldn’t make a movie this exciting!

The monument above (The Warning, sculpted by Eric Richards) was erected in 2003 in Santa Paula, California, to mark a heroic evening in 1928. Motor Officers Thornton Edwards (on the Indian) and Stanley Baker (on the Harley) were on duty the evening of March 12, 1928, when California experienced the second worst disaster in the state’s history. The recently completed St. Francis Dam, 36 miles upstream in Santa Clarita, collapsed shortly after midnight.

The collapse released 52 billion gallons of water, and that water was headed directly toward Santa Paula. The Santa Paula Police Department learned of the impending danger shortly after the dam broke. Thornton and Baker spent the next 3 hours riding their motorcycles throughout Santa Paula, notifying residents and evacuating the town. Thornton worked for the State Highway Department, which later became the California Highway Patrol. Baker was a Santa Paula Police Department Officer. Although the records from this era are sketchy, legend holds that Thornton’s bike had to be repaired during his midnight ride when it ingested water. As a result of these two officers’ actions, the residents of Santa Paula were successfully evacuated, and few Santa Paula residents died that night.

The water released by the dam (the reservoir had just filled, and the poorly-designed dam was not strong enough to contain it) mixed with mud and debris to form a wall of slurry that advanced 54 miles to the ocean at about 12 miles per hour. The disaster killed an estimated 470 people, and to this day, it is the second worst disaster in California history. Only the San Francisco earthquake resulted in more death.

The Warning contains no mention of either motor officer’s name; rather, it is intended to honor all acts of heroism, and to honor those killed during the St. Francis Dam collapse. If you head through downtown Santa Paula, The Warning is hard to miss. It’s worth a trip to Santa Paula just to see it.

Special thanks for the above research to Peggy Kelly, a reporter for the Santa Paula Times, whom I interviewed for the above information.

Morgans and Mr. H…

A 1953 Morgan. This is a dream car for me.

I read the Wall Street Journal pretty much every day. The reporting is far more objective than what passes for journalism in the other papers I take (the LA Times and the NY Times), the stories tend to be better, and there’s A.J. Baime. Mr. Baime is an award-winning historian and a fantastic writer. He does a regular column in the WSJ about interesting people who own interesting automobiles, and the most recent one was about a fellow who fell in love with, and later bought, a Morgan.

A Morgan. Wow, that brought back memories.

Pete Herrington in 1963, when I was in the 7th grade. I was surprised at how easy it was to find this photograph on the Internet.

When I was 12 years old and in the 7th grade, our science teacher (Peter Herrington) owned a Morgan. It was 1953 Morgan, to be specific, and it was unrestored and magnificently original. I was just getting interested in cars and motorcycles back then, and that Morgan was riveting. It was one of the most interesting things I’d ever seen. I couldn’t quite figure it out, but I knew I liked it. In an age when everything was trying to look like a fighter jet, Mr. Herrington’s Morgan was a combination of an old car, a sports car, and attitude. It had sweeping fenders (like an old Model A Ford), it was low slung and a two-seater (like a Corvette), and it had huge louvers and a big leather belt to hold the hood down. Its appearance said I don’t care what I look like, I’m tough, and I’m built to perform. It was cool. To a 12-year-old kid like me, it was beyond cool.

To dive a bit deeper into this story, I was a bit of a problem, you see, when I was 12 years old. Actually, I was a pain in the ass, and I got detention a lot. You might say I was a confirmed detention recidivist, and as such, I spent more time in detention than any other class I had in those days.

Normally, detention would be a bad thing, but our principal rotated detention duty and one day Mr. Herrington drew the short straw. I guess it was inevitable that Peter Herrington would be the detention duty warden one day when I had detention, and this day was that day. The upshot of all this was that I lived about a mile and a half from school, and after cleaning blackboards and doing the other kinds of things kids in 7th grade had to do in detention, I started to walk home when my detention ended. Mr. Herrington was in the parking lot, he fired up the Morgan, and he offered me a ride home. In his Morgan. The one I described above. A ride. In the Morgan. This was punishment?

Now, I won’t tell you that I tried to time my recidivism to coincide with Mr. Herrington’s detention duty, but I will tell you that was not the last time I ever got a ride home after detention in the ’53 Morgan. That car was just so cool. It was a convertible, the door waistline was incredibly low, and it looked and felt like you sat above the pavement at a distance more appropriate for a valve gap than an automobile’s ground clearance. The effect was intoxicating.

Many years later (50 years later, to be specific), I received an email from good buddy Chief Mike (who lives in New Jersey, where I sort of grew up) with an interesting message. Whaddaya know? Mike had bumped into Mr. Herrington at a local mall. It seems our former 7th grade science teacher (still a gearhead and now long retired) had shoehorned an LS-2 Chevy Corvette engine into his Mazda RX-7. He had some questions about the care and maintenance of Corvette motors, and everyone in New Jersey knows Mike is the guy to see if you have a Corvette question.

As Mike was telling this story, a lot of memories flooded back. All of us have had great teachers, and Mr. Herrington was mine. Like I said above, I was a first-class pain-in-the-you-know-what in junior high school (and in high school, too, for that matter), but my 7th grade science class held my interest. Science was cool and so was my teacher. It’s probably why I became an engineer.

To make a long story a little less long, I Googled Mr. Herrington’s name. Yep, there he was. There’s his address. A quick 411 call and a few minutes later I had Mr. Herrington on the phone. How about that? Fifty years since I’ve seen this guy, and now I’ve got him on the phone.

You know, a voice is a funny thing. Mr. Herrington, then well into his 80s, sounded exactly as I remembered him. Strong, firm, and focused on gearhead stuff. He told me that the RX-7 was a good car, but the original rotary piston engines were only good for about 75,000 miles (he’d been through several of them, he said). Dropping a Corvette engine into an RX-7 was the way to go, and that’s what he had done. He spoke about it like it was changing tires (a classic Peter Herrington trait).

We had a great conversation. He told me he remembered me, which I kind of doubted until he asked me a question about my father. “Your Dad was the guy who designed and built his own swimming pool, including the filtration system, right? He made the filter tank out of an old wine vat?” That was so long ago I had forgotten about it, but not Mr. Herrington. Wow!

I told Mr. Herrington I felt bad about being such a bad kid and such a royal pain in the ass back in the 7th grade, and he said, “Ah, don’t worry about it. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re that age…” Just like that, years of guilt evaporated. It was a good feeling.

I sent Mr. Herrington a signed copy of 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM and we had a couple of great conversations after that touching on cars, motorcycles, careers, health, life, and other topics. And then one day his wife wrote to tell me he had passed away. That was a tough email to read, but I felt incredibly fortunate to have reconnected with Mr. Herrington, and I think he enjoyed it, too. A.J. Baime’s article in the Wall Street Journal made me think about him again. Thank you, A.J. Baime, and thank you, Peter Herrington.

Pawn Stars, Pellet Pistols, and Bond. James Bond.

When I wrote the CSC blog, I occasionally did a gun piece on it. This is one I did about a pellet gun I still own. I like pellet guns, and you can have a lot of fun with these things. You can set up a 15-ft range in your backyard or in your garage (15 feet is the distance for competitive pellet pistol matches), and shooting a pellet gun is a good way to keep your skills honed when you can’t get to the big boy range. It’s also a good way to pick off a gopher or a bird that wants to start singing at 3:30 in the morning, but we won’t go there. So, for today’s story…my Walther is a pellet gun with a rich heritage and bunch of cool stories. Here are a couple.

I was channel surfing the other night and I briefly clicked through a rerun of Pawn Stars. You know, that’s the reality TV number about these dudes who run a pawn shop in Las Vegas. I like that show but I blitzed right past it to subsequent channels when something clicked.

Wait a second, I thought as my thumb continued clicking channels on autopilot. That can’t be!

So I reversed my path through the zillions of channels we pay for with Direct TV (but never watch). I went back to Rick and the boys in Las Vegas. They were still on the bit that had caught my attention. Son of a gun. Almost literally…son of a gun! I saw what it was that triggered (ah, there it is, the persistent pun) a neuron and made me click back to the Pawn Stars show. Look at that!

What I saw on TV was a Walther LuftPistole Model LP53. Whoa! I actually own one of those! A real Walther air pistol (that’s what “luftpistole” means in German). And there it was…my gun, on TV!

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What further riveted my attention was something I had sort of noticed but never really recognized before. It became clear when the guys on the Pawn Stars show were giving their background spiel on the Walther. I suddenly realized what had captured my attention yet again. It was another thing that clicked! I’d been seeing it for decades and I had never connected the dots, even though I had owned a fine LP53 specimen for the last 50 years.

At this point, you should mentally key in the James Bond theme song. You know….da da, da dahhh, da da daaaaa. Bond. James Bond.

In all those early posters advertising Dr. No, From Russia with Love, and the early Sean Connery James Bond classics (and they were indeed classics; those early Bond movies were magnificent), the advertising had shown Sean holding an LP53. Even though I owned one and shot it extensively, and even though I am a big time James Bond fan (you know, the secret missions and all), it had just never clicked together for me. In all those early advertisements, big bad James Bond, Agent 007, with a license to kill, was posing with an air pistol. Take a hard look at that photo on the left. That’s a Walther LP53 he’s holding. Da da, da daaah, indeed.

So here’s the story. When the Bond franchise was just getting started, the movie folks scheduled a photo shoot in which Bond was supposed to pose with his iconic Walther PPk, the signature secret agent .32 ACP automatic Ian Fleming wrote about. The only problem was that whoever organized the photo shoot had all the props except, you guessed it, the Walther PPk. Whoa. The whole studio, the tux, the photographer, and James Bond himself all dressed up with nowhere to go. They forgot the gun. What to do?

As it turns out, the photographer (a lensmaster named David Hurn) was a pellet gun target shooting enthusiast (me, too, but I’ll get to that in a bit). His target pistol of choice was, you guessed it again, the Walther LP53. The LP53 is a physically large pistol, and it’s a high class, high-ticket item. Real steel, deep blueing, and all the good stuff that makes old guys like me get all dewey-eyed. Hurn ran out to his car and came back with the LP53, and the rest, as they say, is history. Much of the public is completely unaware that their hero, silver screen idol James Bond, posed with a pellet gun. Hell, I didn’t realize it until Rick told the story on Pawn Stars, and I’ve owned an LP53 for most of my life.

That actual pellet pistol, Bond’s stand-in Walther LP53, sold for a staggering $430,000 at auction a few years ago. That’s the story that Rick told while I was watching Pawn Stars. Whoa, hold the presses! $430,000, and I own one of those things!

Well, not so fast. Rick offered the guy $200. $200. Wow, I thought I would be able to retire on that one pellet gun, but not so. Maybe if James Bond had owned the one that was sitting in my closet, but mine had a less famous background. I checked around on the Internet, and $200 seems to be about the going price (as this screen capture from a recent auction shows)…

So, back to my LP53. It’s in immaculate condition. To a collector it would be cool. My Walther has everything except the owner’s manual. That includes the interchangeable sight blades, the wooden cocking plug (the big round wooden thing that fits over the end of the barrel to assist in cocking the gun), the original box, and mine even has the original factory test target. This is mine…

I guess the $200 going rate is a good thing, because I have no plans to retire any time soon and in any event, I’m hanging on to my LP53. It was given to my Dad by one of his shooting buddies (a fellow named Leo Keller, who, like my Dad, was a serious trapshooter). Dad passed it along to me when I was a kid, and I had a lot of fun with it.

One time I walked over to my cousin Bobby’s house holding that gun in my hand the entire way (Bobby lived a mile away from where I did, back in New Jersey). Imagine that…a young teenager like me walking down the road for a mile holding a pistol in his hand. If a kid in New Jersey tried that today, they’d call out half a dozen SWAT teams and maybe even the National Guard. Back then, it was a normal thing to do, and nobody got their shorts in a knot over it.

Anyway, when I got to Bobby’s house we sat on his back porch shooting the Walther, and then we got the bright idea it might make sense to have something to shoot at. Bobby looked through the trash and found an empty orange juice can. You might remember those cans…they were little (maybe an inch in diameter and about 3 inches tall). The idea was you took the frozen concentrate out and mixed it with water, and voilà, you had orange juice.

Bobby set the can out about 30 feet away and I took a shot at it. Bingo! The can went down.

“Wow, that’s pretty good,” Bobby said. Bobby was about 7 years younger than me (he still is, actually). He was easily impressed back then (today, not so much).

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” I said. “I’m going to shoot it again and make it stand up.”

Bobby looked at me in amazement. I was his big cousin. He thought what he saw in me was supreme confidence that I could make that shot. You know, that I did this sort of thing all the time. The truth is I had no idea if I could make that shot, but it was such an outrageous thing to claim I had nothing to lose. But….if I made the shot, we’d be talking about it for years.

I took careful aim at the base of the can and gently squeezed the Walther’s trigger. The Walther spit out compressed air and the little .177 pellet connected, catching the orange juice can right at its base. The can spun around, flipped up, whirled around a few more times, and came to rest. Standing. I couldn’t believe it. It was a one-in-a-million shot, and I made it! Pure dumb luck on my part. But I acted as if it was the most natural thing in the world for me to do. That was sometime in the early 1960s. I was back in New Jersey last month and Sue and I had dinner with Bobby and his wife, Sheree. And yes, we talked about that shot.

In researching the background of this unique handgun, I tried to learn what it originally cost. I checked some vintage gun books I own. In my copy of the 1974 Gun Digest, I actually found it. The retail price in 1974 was $59. I had to go through several old books to find it, and as I did so, I was amazed at the artwork on some of them. The 1956 Shooter’s Bible, in particular, stood out. I thought I would scan the cover and include it as a nice touch in finishing this post…

Want to see our other Tales of the Gun stories? Just click here!

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Dream Bike: Ducati 860GT

There are only a couple Ducatis that make my Dream Bike fantasy garage and the numero uno, top dog, ultimate Ducati is the springer 860. Unlike most Ducatis, this square-case, 90-degree, V-twin motorcycle eliminates the positive-closing desmodromic valve actuation system and in its place uses a conventional spring-return valve train. To some posers this change negates the whole reason for owning a Ducati. Not in my view: The ability to set valve lash with only a potato peeler on a motorcycle axle deep in cow manure plus the fact that I rarely run any motorcycle at valve floating RPMs means Desmo Ducks hold no advantage for me.

Is it wrong to love a motorcycle solely for its looks? Giorgetto Giugiaro’s Jetson-cartoon styling speaks of optimism and a bold stepping-forth into the future. It looks fabulous and slabby and never ages in my eyes. This is one of those motorcycles you can stare at for hours. Why stop there? I’ve never ridden an 860GT so I’m just extrapolating from Ducati’s past performance but I’m sure the thing will handle street riding without issue.

The bikes were available with electric start for the kicking-impaired and after 1975 Ducati exchanged the perfect angular styling for the more traditional, rounded Desmo GT look. It was an error that I may never forgive them for. The springer 860 stayed in production a few more years but Ducati decided to go all in with desmodromic to give their advertising department some thing to boast about.

These 860GT Ducati’s are for riders. The seating position is humane, the gas tank big enough and I’ve read of some pretty astronomical miles racked up on the springer engine. A few years ago at an auction in Daytona I missed out on a beautiful red 860GT. The thing looked like new and sold for $5000. Damn cheap for such a rare (built only 2 years) and cool motorcycle.

Dream Garage

If I had all the money, I’d be one of those crazy collector types, like Jay Leno or Anthony Hopkins, the Silence Of The Lambs guy. You know, the kind that has 177 motorcycles, their Great Paw-Paw’s washing machine motor and 42 washed-up old cars stored in three aircraft hangers. All of my bikes would be in neat rows, I’d have every color of every year of each model and they would all sit in my gigantic storage shed and slowly seize up. And when I die there’d be an auction where the stuff would sell for pennies on the dollar to a bunch of soulless flippers intent on making old motorcycles as expensive and annoying as the collector car scene is today.

Maybe I’d organize both cars and bikes by engine type. There would be a Kawasaki 750 triple, a Saab 93 triple, a Suzuki 750 triple next to a crisp, modern Honda NS400. Flathead Row would have a Melroe Bobcat with the air-cooled Wisconsin V-4, and all three Harley flatties: The 45- incher, the Sportster KH and that big block they made (74-inch?). You’d have to have an 80-inch Indian and the Scout along with most of the mini bikes built in the 1970s.

I love a disc-valve two stroke but I’ve never owned one. First bikes in that section will be a bunch of Kawasaki twins (350cc and 250cc). I’d have a CanAm because with their carb tucked behind the cylinder instead of jutting out the side they don’t look like disc bikes should. A Bridgestone 350 twin without an air filter element would be parked next to a ferocious Suzuki 125cc square-four road racer, year to be determined.

Besides the two-stroke Saab I’d have a two-stroke Suzuki LJ 360cc 4X4 with the generator that turns into the starter motor like an old Yamaha AT1-125. I’d need a metalflake orange Myers Manx dune buggy. It would be that real thick kind of metalflake that looks like some kind of novelty candy served only on Easter or found in table centerpieces at wedding receptions. A few Chevy trucks from the 1960’s would make it into the collection also. A mid-60’s Chevy van, the swoopy one, would be a must-have to go with one of those giant steam tractors, the ones with the steel wheels and the chain wrapped around the steering shaft and then to the center pivot front axle to make the beast turn hard.

To complement the Bobcat I’d have a gas-engined backhoe, something from the 1950’s with all new hoses and tires. I’ll paint it yellow with a roller and then hand paint “The Jewel” in red on both sides of the hood with the tiny artist’s brush from a child’s watercolor set. The backhoe would be a smooth running liquid-cooled flathead with an updraft carburetor and it would reek of unburnt fuel whenever you lifted a heavy load in the front bucket.

No one would be as into my junk as me, so I’d have to hire a guy to feign interest in the stuff. I think $10 an hour should get me a sidekick who would always be amazed at what I had found. We’d both marvel at how little work or parts the item would need to get it running and then we’d push it into an empty space. After a cold beer from a refrigerator plastered with Klotz decals he’d run his card through the time clock with a resounding clunk, leaving me and the shop cat sitting in my beat-up brown vinyl recliner to stare at my collection and wonder if I really had all the money.

California Speed and Sport Shop

Gresh’s post yesterday reminded me of a gig I had when I was a youngster back on the East Coast. This is a blog I did for CSC about 10 years ago, and it seemed like a good follow-on to the Mr. Bray story. Here you go, folks…

I’m a workaholic. I’ve been that way ever since I was a teenager. It all started with one of the two best jobs I’ve ever had and a traffic citation (more on that in a minute), and somehow, even though I grew up in New Jersey, California already had its tentacles into me (more on that in a minute, too).

Let’s get this story started with a dynamite photo I found of Joe Barzda on the Internet a short bit ago…

So who’s Joe Barzda?

Joe Barzda and his brother Eddie were two of the coolest dudes I’ve ever known, and they both were strong positive influences in my life. The Barzdas ran the California Speed and Sport Shop in New Brunswick, New Jersey. This place was Mecca, the promised land, the holy of holies for teenagers like me back in those days. It was the premier speed shop in the northeastern United States. They were the east coast distributors for all of the big performance brands, and it was cool. Way cool.

You have to picture the times…the late 1960s. For many of us, those were our formative years. The muscle car craze in those days was in full tilt. GTOs. Chevelles. The Oldsmobile 442. Roadrunners. The GTX. It was a glorious era, a real hey day for Detroit, back when American automobiles were at the top of the food chain. The muscle car craze was the logical continuation of a hot rod boom that started after World War II, and all of it seemed to emanate from southern California. Anything that had wheels was magical, and anything having to do with California even more so. In my circle of friends from a half century ago (many of whom I still stay in touch with…guys like Pauly Berkuta, Richie Ernst, Bobby Beckley, Ernie Singer, Mike Beltranena, Ralph Voorhees, and more), it all revolved around cars.

Our lives revolved around cars even before we had cars. We grew up listening to AM radio, with groups like the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, Ronny and the Daytonas, and others singing about little old ladies from Pasadena, Cobras, GTOs, and little deuce coupes. I’ll bet many of you did, too. Watch American Graffiti again. That was us. I feel sorry for kids growing up today…with what passes for music, the lowbrow nature of what’s on TV and in the movies, the abysmal jobs the public school systems are doing, the unhealthy fixation on cell phones and texting…we really had it good when we were kids. But I digress…back to the story…

CalSpeed&Sport — The California Speed and Sport Shop in New Brunswick

So, one day, I stopped in the California Speed and Sport Shop. The place was beyond cool…mag wheels, big dual pumper Holley carbs, headers and aluminum manifolds, and cams…all with exotic names like Weiand, Iskenderian, Edelbrock, Hedman, Cragar…you get the idea. I’m not sure what got into me, but when one of the crusty old dudes behind the counter asked what I wanted, I asked if they had any openings. I had a dinky little job as a stockboy at W.T. Grant (a department store), and it was boring. I would have worked for free in a place like the California Speed and Sport Shop. The guy who asked if I needed help at the California Speed and Sport Shop? Well, I didn’t know I was talking to royalty, but that guy was none other than Joe Barzda. I filled out an application and left. And I forgot about it. I had no relevant experience, and I couldn’t imagine a place that cool wanting to hire a stockboy like me from a five-and-dime store.

1965GTO — A 1965 Pontiac GTO…Richie’s was the same color!

Okay, more background information and let me back up another three years….Paul Berkuta was my next door neighbor in those days. He’s a cool guy. You know the routine…we were always getting into some kind of trouble or another. It was a grand time and a great place to grow up. Pauly’s cousin Richie lived in New Brunswick, and he was way cooler than either of us. One day, Richie rolled up in a 1965 Pontiac GTO. GTOs were beyond cool back then (and now, too, in my opinion). The GTO was the original muscle car. Literally. When John DeLorean shoved a big block Pontiac motor into a Tempest back in 1964, he single-handedly started the muscle car era. The GTO was the original. It was awesome.

I was 14, and Richie’s GTO was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. He gave me a ride, and when he floored that thing, he floored me, too. I was hooked. If there was one thing I knew with certainty at the age of 14, it was that someday I was going to own a GTO.

For the next three years, I saved. I scrimped. I found every nickel I could. I spent nothing. I had a little less than half of what I needed when I was old enough to drive to buy a GTO, but that didn’t slow me down. I went to work on my parents, and being the persuasive and annoying little dude I was (some folks would say I still am), I talked my old man into springing for the rest. I bought a GTO. I had reached Nirvana.

Hmmm. 17 years old. A GTO. You can probably guess where this story is going…

So, late one night I ran my car through the gears on Route 130. I saw a set of headlights way in the background, but they were so far back I ignored them. For a while. A short while. Then I noticed the lights were bearing down on me. Hmmm…the guy probably wants to run me, I thought. No way he’s gonna beat my GTO. Then he pulled up alongside me and turned on his interior lights. A NJ State Trooper. Yikes. A speeding ticket. My first. Oh, man, I was in trouble. That ticket was tough to explain to my folks, but a 17-year-old kid in a GTO…what would you expect? To say my parents were upset would be an understatement. You’ve probably been through this…lots of promises…I’ll be a good boy…I’ll never speed again…

Right.

Exactly one week later, I was stopped at a light on Route 1. Late at night. A guy pulled up next to me in an SS 396 Chevelle. Oh boy. It’s funny how circumstances can focus the mind. I literally forgot everything else. The light changed and we were off. I was smoking that Chevelle, too, feeling like the 17-year-old badass I knew I was, right up until the moment I spotted the cop. He saw us about the same time we saw him. Uh, oh. Racing on the highway. That was a big one…an 8-point ticket with a mandatory court appearance. My folks were about as angry as I’d ever seen them. And right in the middle of one of the worst “counseling sessions” I’d ever experienced from my old man, the phone rang. It was Joe Barzda at the California Speed and Sport Shop, wanting to know when I could start.

Now, you gotta picture this. Here I am, one step away from a life of crime, holding a traffic ticket for racing on the highway. My folks were mad as hornets, giving me hell for what was an admittedly boneheaded move. I’m wondering if I should run away or maybe join the Army (which I eventually did a few years later, but that’s another story). My parents were upset with the whole hot rod/muscle car thing, they were mad at me, and at that precise moment, the phone rings with a job offer to work at a place that’s smack dab in the middle of the whole car craze and performance movement.

I took that job, and it was one of the best breaks I ever had in my life, even though it turned me into a workaholic. I routinely worked 70 hours a week. At first, I put in those hours mostly because I was afraid to go home (my folks stayed mad for a long time about that racing ticket), but I loved the work and the California Speed and Sport Shop experience. It was the coolest place. It was one of the main places in the country for anything having to do with high performance automobiles. One day I looked up and my boss was talking to a guy with an Italian accent who looked vaguely familiar. When I asked Joe who it was, he told me: Mario Andretti. It was just that kind of place.

All of my friends knew I fell into clover working at the California Speed and Sport Shop. I worked there all through college, and for many years I stopped in to visit whenever I was back in NJ. The Barzdas I worked for are all gone now, but the shop is still there. A very cool place and a very cool job. It was just one of those lucky breaks, and I’ll be the first to admit I’ve had way more than my fair share of those in my life.

So there you have it. Gresh wants us to do a series of stories on past jobs, and he keeps hitting me up for stories about the aerospace industry (that’s where I spent most of my working life). Interested? If so, let us know, and we’ll push ahead.

Mr. Bray

I didn’t start out working for Mr. Bray. He was a deep red construction foreman who had been baking in the Florida sun all his life. His nose looked like Bob Hope’s except God had pressed his thumb into Mr. Bray’s right nostril and kind of smooshed the thing to the side. Mr. Bray ran projects all around Miami. I was a laborer helping my dad who was an equipment operator. The main job of labor for an equipment operator is to never let the operator get off the machine. Anything that needed to be done in order to keep him in his seat was my responsibility.

Mr. Bray had hired my dad to do the earthwork on a shopping center he was building in North Miami. I was a hard worker because I wanted to make some seed money and go back to California. I was taking growth hormones and steroids at the time. It was all I could do not to tear the footings out of the ground with my bare hands. The meds were prescription: Starting with a 5-foot tall, 98-pound body the pills added 6 inches in height and 27 pounds in acne over 3 years. I had abundance of energy, man. I tore around the construction site like a banshee. Mr. Bray liked a hard worker, drug-induced or not, so he hired me away from my dad just by offering twice the money.

The job was Union, which meant I had to join one. Mr. Bray had connections at the carpenter’s local so he arraigned for my union card. This was a big deal because normally you’d have to wait in line to join and then you’d have to wait in line until the Union sent you out on a job. It might take several years to clear the backlog. I was a First Period Apprentice without missing a paycheck.

When I got that paycheck it was a disappointment. The Union dues sapped a lot, then the federal and state deductions sapped some more. My dad paid cash, you know? I ended up making less money than before. Mr. Bray had pulled strings to get me in but I showed him my pay stub anyway. “That’s not so good, is it?” Mr. Bray said. I told him that it wasn’t but that I would carry on. I mean I had taken the deal; I felt obligated. “Lemme see what I can do about it,” Mr. Bray told me.

The next paycheck I received my rating was Third Period Apprentice (equivalent to 1-1/2 years of experience and passing several written tests) and I was making 8 dollars an hour. This was more money than I had ever made in my lifetime. From then on my loyalties were clear. I was Mr. Bray’s boy. If he needed a body buried on the site I would do faster it and better than anyone else.

Mr. Bray’s crew consisted of a journeyman carpenter, a mid-level carpenter, a laborer and me. In practice, we weren’t tied to a trade. I might have to do a little wiring, relocate pipe or dig a foundation. We formed all the foundations, then the steel workers would tie the steel and we would pour the concrete. These were non-cosmetic jobs. For slabs we hired a crew of finishers.

It didn’t set well with the other guys when Mr. Bray made me the foreman the few times he had to go off site. I only had like two months of construction experience but had absorbed a lot more knowledge just by being around my dad. The journeyman carpenter got sulky taking orders from a third period apprentice.

I have never been a leader of men. My approach to management is to tell everyone to stay the hell out of my way and I’ll do it myself. Surprisingly it worked in this instance because these guys still had remnants of a conscience. We usually got more done when Mr. Bray was gone.

Mr. Bray used my size to motivate the crew. Whenever there was something heavy to move the guys would bitch and want a crane. “Gresh, put that plank on the roof.” That was all I needed to hear. I was a greyhound shot out of a gate. I’d shoulder the 10-inch wide, 20-footer, run full tilt at the building, spear the end of the board into the ground like a pole vaulter and walk the board vertical onto the wall. While the rest of the crew shook their heads in pity I’d run up the ladder and grab the board, hand-over-handing the thing until I could rest it onto my shoulder. Putting the wood onto the roof took about 45 seconds.

The whole thing had a creepy, Cool-Hand-Luke-when-he-was-acting-broken vibe but I wasn’t acting. It was more an act of unreasonable anger. I wanted to get stuff done. It was all that mattered to me. Mr. Bray would turn to the guys and say “Look at Gresh, he did it easy. You don’t need a crane. Now put the rest of those damn boards up there.” Picturing the guys pole-vaulting the boards up one by one I’ll never understand why they didn’t beat the crap out of me when Mr. Bray turned his back.

Another Union trade on a construction job are the bricklayers. They would put up walls on the foundations we poured. The floors were left dirt to allow new tenants to choose the interior layout. After they put up the walls we would tie the steel and form the gaps between sections of wall then pour them full of concrete. The poured columns made a sturdy wall. Unfortunately, being only 8 inches wide, the wall is very fragile until the concrete columns are in.

Mr. Bray was always looking for ways to save the company money and as my dad’s equipment was still on site he would have me do small operator jobs rather than have my dad drive to the site and charge him. We needed a trench for something, I can’t remember what but since we only had a 14-inch bucket it didn’t matter. I was digging inches away from a wall with the backhoe at 45 degrees to allow the bucket to dump the spoil. I could only put one outrigger down because the wall was too close. The whole setup was wobbly and when a return swing ran a bit wide the boom tapped the wall. Not hard, it didn’t even chip the blocks.

It happened so slowly. The wall teetered. I pulled the boom away. I was wishing it to settle down. The wall tottered. More thoughts and prayers were directed at the wall. Slowly the wall went over and smashed into pieces. After checking to see that I didn’t kill anyone I went to Mr. Bray. “Um…we have a problem, Mr. Bray.”

He was marking stuff on his critical path chart. “What is it, Gresh?”

“You better come take a look.”

We walked over to the crushed wall. I explained everything like I just did. Mr. Bray was fighting some inner demons for sure. Finally his face relaxed and he said, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll tell the bricklayers the wind blew it over.” Man, I loved that guy.

From my dad I learned a perfectionism that I have rarely been able to equal. From Mr. Bray I learned that perfection is a great goal but the job needs to get done because another trade is waiting on you. Mr. Bray would let a lot of things slide that my dad would obsess over. Working for Mr. Bray was much less stressful and customers inside the finished shoe store could not tell the difference.

The shopping center was nearly done. I had worked for Mr. Bray 6 months. I had a couple thousand dollars saved and told him I was going back to California. “Why don’t you stay on? I’ll train you in construction management, you’ll be a journeyman carpenter in 5 years and you’ll be running jobs like this.”

Mr. Bray was offering me his most valuable gift. He was offering me everything he had: To pass his lifetime of knowledge on to me. I had to go back to California though and I left feeling like I had let Mr. Bray down in the end. And even today I’m not settled. I’m still trying to finish the damn job.

Three Flags Classic: Day 2

The second day of the 2005 Three Flags Classic motorcycle rally would take us from Gallup, New Mexico (where we stayed the first night of the tour) to Grand Junction, Colorado. You can catch up on the ride by reading our prior blog posts here:

The 2005 Three Flags Classic Rally: the Intro!

The Three Flags Classic: Day 1

And with that, let’s get to Day 2!

Day 2 of the 2005 Three Flags Rally. Good times. Great roads. Gorgeous scenery. A grand ride in every respect!

To continue the adventure, we were up early and we rolled out of Gallup, New Mexico on a beautiful day. The bikes were running great and Marty and I were in high spirits. It’s hard to put into words what it feels like to be on these kinds of rides. You’re out in the world, on a powerful motorcycle, seeing things worth seeing. It’s a great experience and a great feeling. Everything just seems better to me when I’m on a motorcycle ride. I sleep better, the food has better flavors, the people are friendlier, the bikes feel stronger, and on and on it goes. You need to experience it to really understand it. You folks who ride the big rides know what I’m talking about.

We spent very little time on the freeways on the Three Flags Rally. Most of our riding was on magnificent roads like the ones you see in the photos below. The folks at the Southern California Motorcycle Association who planned the ride did a fantastic job.

Another cool shot on the road in New Mexico. That’s Marty and his K1200RS BMW, with my Daytona in the background. Marty still owns the K1200RS. It has 144,000 miles on the clock.

Another Daytona shot in New Mexico. That’s Shiprock in the background.

If it seems like there are a lot of pictures of my Daytona here, well, I guess there are. I loved owning the Daytona, and the more I rode it, the more I liked it. For a cool story on how I came to own this bike, check out this blog entry I wrote a few months ago.

A few miles up the road from this location, we crossed into Colorado. This was my first time in Colorado, other than passing through the airport in Denver a few time on business trips. But those stops don’t really count…a layover in any airport could be a layover in, well, any other airport.

Mesa Verde, Colorado. Wow…this was a great ride!

Marty wanted to stop in Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. I had never heard of the place (I don’t get out enough, I guess), but I was up for it. Marty was a very easy guy to travel with and he didn’t have many preferences. He was a judge (that is to say, he’s the real deal…a Superior Court judge), and he told me that he didn’t want to make any decisions on this ride. Where we stayed, where we stopped to eat, and all the rest were up to me. I think that’s because Marty was paid to make decisions all day long. Making decisions was his job, and he wanted a break. So when he asked to hit Mesa Verde, it was about the only time he expressed a preference on where to go, and I was all for that. It was a good move. Mesa Verde National Park is an impressive place.

The ride up to the top of Mesa Verde (it literally means “green table” in Spanish) was awesome. It’s a multi-mile climb to about 8500 feet, and the vistas are incredible. You can see clear into New Mexico from the top.

All of the above, as you can see from the photos, was grand. But the main attractions at Mesa Verde National Park are the ancestral Pueblo Native American ruins. That part of the Park is almost beyond belief. It’s real Indiana Jones stuff.

Ancient Indian cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde. If you’ve never been to Mesa Verde National Park, trust me on this: You need to make the trip. Watch for the next issue of Motorcycle Classics magazine…it’s got all the good info on where to stay, where to eat, and more.

Mesa Verde is a very interesting National Park. I liked it so much that Sue and I took a road trip there last summer to explore the area in more detail. I’d been thinking about it in the 14 years that have elapsed since the 2005 Three Flags Classic. I wanted to see it again and bring my wife so she could see it. The Native American cliff dwellings are amazing and the scenery is magnificent. I have a story coming out on Mesa Verde in the next issue of Motorcycle Classics magazine. It really is a special place. Marty made the right call on this one. Hey, he’s a judge. The guy makes good decisions!

After Mesa Verde, we rode through heavy rains along the Dolores River and stopped in Telluride, Colorado. The sun came out just as we entered town. The ride along the Dolores River in Colorado was beautiful even in the rain. We were having a grand time.

Downtown Telluride, washed clean by a torrential Colorado rain.

We had a checkpoint in Rangely, Colorado. It was a great experience. I had a conversation with a guy named Pat (a BMW GS rider), and it turned out he lives one street over from where I live in California. I mean, think about that: Here we were, probably 1300 miles from So Cal, two guys strike up a conversation, and it turns out we’re practically neighbors (but we had never met before this ride). What are the odds?

Good buddy and GS rider Pat, a fellow Californio, at a checkpoint in Colorado.

We made Grand Junction, Colorado, where we would be spending the night, and we reconnected with our friends at the hotel. Dinner was great, and then the rain started again. I felt like taking more photos after dinner and I wanted to play with a couple of new toys. I had just purchased an ultra-wide Sigma 17-35 lens and I wanted use it. I had also purchased a Sunpak MiniPro Plus tripod for the trip. It looked like it was going to be a good idea, but it was a bust. One of the legs broke off halfway through the ride, and I threw the thing away. I almost never travel with a tripod any more. They’re just too bulky, and I can usually find something to steady the camera for evening shots.

Our bikes, parked in the rain at the hotel in Grand Junction, Colorado. I used the 17-35 Sigma for this shot, and my uber-cheap tripod (before it broke).

That wrapped up Day 2 of our Three Flags Classic ride in 2005. It was a great ride. We were two days into it and we had already ridden halfway across the United States. Out tally so far was two countries and four states. We still had several more states and another whole country to go. It was magnificent.

There’s more to come on this grand adventure, folks. Stay tuned for Day 3!

Lunch at Jardines

You guys and gals will remember my good buddy Baja John, a guy with whom I’ve been exploring Baja for close to three decades now…

Baja John back in the mid-’90s. Big V-twins and black leather were all the rage. I shot this photo at La Bufadora during a break in the El Nino rains.

John sent an invitation to me to ride with him in Baja this month, but I couldn’t make it (I’ve been in northern California this week). I suggested to John that our ExNotes readers sure would appreciate it, though, if he could send photos from his trip, though, and here’s an email I just received from him…

Joe,

I was originally going to send you just the pictures when you mentioned putting pictures in the blog, so I thought that you might want a story to go with them. I’ve attached a Word document with a story just in case. For some reason, I cannot transfer the pictures to my laptop, so I left places within the document to place the pictures. I will try again to upload the pictures from my phone to my email. Hopefully it works this time. It should be easy to figure out which picture goes where. If you don’t want the story, just enjoy the pictures. BTW, I just finished two fish tacos and two shrimp tacos at Antonio’s. I may go back and eat another one for you before I leave town.

John

That sounds awesome, John. Tell Tony hi for me when you see him again, and tell him I’ll be down there soon enough! We sure appreciate the story and the photos. And folks, without further ado, here’s Baja John’s most recent Baja adventure…

In early 2002, I bought a house in Bahia de Los Angeles on the Baja Peninsula with thoughts of retiring there someday. Over the ensuing years, I continued to ride motorcycles to and from Mexico, anxious for the day when I could leave from my house in Mexico instead of riding 600 miles just to get there, and then begin my ride. Well, that day finally arrived, and I decided to take a ride to Jardines in San Quintin for lunch. I’d heard a number of positive remarks from fellow Americans who had stayed there and who had eaten there. It was time to give the place a personal assessment.

I packed some snacks and water in my tank bag in preparation for my trip. The morning was cool and crisp when I left. It was within a couple of days of the winter solstice and the days were short, so my plan was to leave at sunup, hoping to complete the 450-mile roundtrip before dark. This picture was taken about 20 miles out of town.

The fog nestled so close to the ground made it appear as though I was looking at a forest of cacti poking their heads through the clouds. For some unknown reason, I took that as an omen of good things to come. I passed one truck on that 40 mile stretch to the main highway.

When I reached the junction at Highway 1, my fuel gauge read 3/4 full. I turned to the north, and immediately saw this sign.

I wasn’t yet familiar with my CSC TT250, but I had read reviews of 65 mpg, and since I didn’t yet know what 3/4 full meant on my bike, I decided to press on, optimistic that I would find gas somewhere on the way.

Traffic increased on Highway 1. I guess that’s to be expected since it’s the only paved highway that travels the entire length of the peninsula. After passing 6 vehicles within the first 30 minutes, I decided that traffic probably wasn’t going to be bad enough to have a negative impact on my ride, so I continued north, enjoying the solitude and watching the highway twist its way through the desert as I came down yet another mountain.

As I continued north, I noticed my gas gauge reaching 1/2 full at Chapala. I still had 63 miles to go to Catavina, which was the only place that I thought may have gas. Hoping that the gauge accuracy was a bit on the conservative side, I continued on. Running the numbers in my head, I concluded that I should make it to Catavina, even if my actual fuel level was a little less than indicated. However, if Catavina didn’t have gas, then I was going to either have to stay there until I could find someone passing through with extra gas, or try to locate a rancho that might have a couple of gallons to spare. Fortunately, in Catavina I came across a small sign stuck in the dirt on the left side of the highway that said Pemex. The arrow pointed to the right side of the road, and as my eyes scanned the opposite side of the highway, I saw a pickup truck with a couple of 55 gal drums and a few one gallon plastic containers. By this time I had travelled about half the distance to San Quintin, and although my low fuel light was already flashing, I still had not gone on reserve

I figured the price would be astronomical, but that was ok since I would only need a couple of gallons. Surprisingly, it was only $1 per gallon higher than the Pemex station where I had filled up in my town the day before. Confident that I could now make it the rest of the way to San Quintin, I pressed on north, maintaining between 60 and 65 mph indicated.

The desert continued to get greener as I closed in on the town of El Rosario where Mama Espinoza’s famous restaurant is located. I passed by knowing that I had a meal waiting for me in less than an hour at Jardine’s. Traffic remained consistent through the remainder of my trip, and I reached my destination at 11 a.m.

Jardines was like an oasis in the middle of the desert. There were no signs indicating its presence, and as I turned off the main highway just south of town, I thought the place must really be nice since it appeared that they relied on word of mouth for advertisement. Making the turn onto the final dirt road, I still didn’t see it, and there was no indication that a hotel existed anywhere ahead.

After a 1/2 mile, a beautiful hotel, restaurant, and gardens appeared on the right through the trees.

I pulled into the empty parking lot of the restaurant, dismounted, and approached the door. It was locked. Fortunately the hours were posted. Another hour before they opened. That wasn’t good. If I waited around until they opened, got seated and served, I wouldn’t get back on the road until after 1 p.m. That would make it difficult to make it home before dark. Hmmm! Better check the hotel. I had heard the rates were good, but I was pleasantly surprised that a single room was only $31. A two bedroom-suite was a bit steeper at $45. It didn’t take me long to decide to take advantage of one of the perks of retirement – unscheduled time. I quickly pulled out my wallet, checked in, walked around the grounds for a few minutes, and then waited outside the restaurant until they opened.

I opted for the Mediterranean Shrimp at $8.40.

It was fantastic. I was seriously glad that I decided to stay. I kept occupied throughout the day by reading my kindle and talking to Anna, the hotel manager that day. She had spent several years in Wichita, KS, so she spoke English quite well. That night I paid a whopping $4.00 for some Fish and Chips. Another great meal.

The next morning I took my time riding around the area before heading home. I finally left town at 11 a.m. Traffic was the same as the previous day, and I made it home at 3:30 p.m. I stopped for a moment, looking at the moon over the bay before winding my way down the mountain toward home.

Hard to believe; for less than $100 I had a wonderful two days of riding, great food, a good night’s sleep and not one stop light. I feel truly blessed.

Just awesome, John! I had never heard of Jardines, but you can bet it’s on the list for my next visit. Thanks again.

Folks, if you’d like to know more about Baja and our moto adventures down there (and our recommended insurance company, BajaBound), just click here! And if you’d like a more in-depth discussion of what is arguably the greatest adventure riding spot on the planet, why not pick up a copy of Moto Baja!

The ExhaustNotes Review: Cycles South

Easy Rider was a great movie that captured a restless time in America. Captain America and Billy cruising the country on their choppers inspired a generation to get out and see the world. But there’s another, less slick movie that more closely reflects my experiences with motorcycle travel: Cycles South. I’ve watched the film seven times and still enjoy going back for another session.

In 1975 I took off with two of my high school friends and we rode all over the USA. The bikes we used were a first year Gold Wing, a Kawasaki Z1, and a BMW R75/5. Our ride lasted 3 months and we covered 20,000 miles. Cycles South is a lot like that trip except we didn’t take any drugs stronger than beer. I think the parallels to our long ago trip are why I like this movie so much.

The no-budget, Cycles South is on YouTube in seven parts and blows Easy Rider away. Three friends and a cameraman load up their custom-painted BSA 250 singles and head out from Colorado to see what exactly is up in North America. They eventually end up in Mexico where the hijinks never stop. The film is mostly narrated, as recording and editing good audio was not cheap before the digital revolution came along. The narrator’s jokes are corny but are of the same size, variety and groan-inducing type found on any motorcycle road trip you’ve ever taken with your jerky friends.

While the film is low budget the crew that made Cycles South knew a thing or two about filmmaking. This is no shot-with-a-phone, amateur YouTube production. There are some really great motorcycling in the late 20th century shots and wild, drug-crazed scenes mixed in with the excellent off-road action shots.

In hindsight, BSA 250cc singles were not the best choice for a long, multi-country road trip but the boys came up with the perfect solution to their problems and burnt a few extra dinosaurs in the process. Trust me, you’ll be green with envy.

Cycles South ends in an unsatisfying way. It appears as if they just ran out of money and stopped filming. No matter, 6/7th of Cycles South is still better than most other motorcycle movies so get some popcorn and fire up the computer; you’re gonna love it.

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