professor95 wrote:
Not to change the focus of the thread, but it would be neat to know how some of the rest of the folks here came to be motor-heads (or whatever you want to call yourself :h).
When I was 12, I wanted some money. Checked into the paper route thing - $1/day to get up at 4am and bust my butt, 7 days a week? AND I have to do the collections after school as well?
No deal, I'll pass.
Talked to all sorts of business owners in the neighborhood, but they weren't gonna put a 12 y.o. to work.
There was however, "The Bikers". One of the houses in the neighborhood was owned by a member of the most famous outlaw motorcycle club you can think of. He had a 3 car garage in the back, and it was a fully equipped machine shop.
But those guys were SCARY. Finally, I psyched myself up, walked down that loooong driveway and stood at the threshold of the shop.
And they ignored me.
After a half hour or so of standing in the sun sweating, one guy walks over and says, "WHAT?".
Told him I needed a job, and he and the other guys never even asked my age - they just told me (in various terms) I was too weak and wimpy to be a machinist and I should go home to my mommy.
Which naturally made me angry. They liked that.
Finally, after leaving me to sweat some more and going to the back of the shop to talk it over, they said they'd give me a tryout. They set 5 milk crates of these metal rings (exhaust donuts) out in the sun, put a chair next to them, and an empty crate on the other side of the chair.
I had to take a 3-sided machinist's knife, and de-burr the rings, both sides, inner and outer. If I could do 3 crates by the end of the day - AND DO THEM RIGHT! - then they'd think it over.
Basically flayed the skin off my fingers, and blistered what was left (those rings were HOT from sitting in the sun), but I did all 5 crates and DID IT RIGHT!
Spent two summers working there, as well as afternoons when school was in session (they said if they found out I skipped school then I was fired - no excuses). They paid me a man's wages as well.
Those guys turned me into a gearhead (and a machinist).
