Captainkirk's Duster project
Chapter 11
Days passed into weeks, and weeks into months. We got used to the patterns of school, even though each month was a different subject; different problems, the approach was the same. Mondays, new topic. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, drill it into our heads. Friday, quiz. Last Friday of the month, final exam. The days, though daylight was still fairly short, in themselves were long. 6 a.m., up, shower and quick breakfast. Into the Duke-mobile and off to work; start work 7 a.m. Work til 3:00, back to the Duke-mobile and drive like hell across town to school. Start school 4 p.m. School until 11 p.m. Drive home to MHP. Eat dinner, study. Rinse, lather and repeat. It wasnt exactly easy, but I got used to it. Saturday nights and Sundays were about the only times I had to play with The Duke, so most of the things I did improvement-wise were small. I did a lot of reading car rags and dreaming on weekends. As the days grew longer and warmer, we started going to Peoria Street, as previously mentioned.
The spring of '79 dawned like a breath of fresh air. We were into a well-oiled routine at school, and were clicking off the classes the way your odometer clicks off miles on a long trip; when you're finished, you gape open-mouthed with surprise at the mileage you've racked up and shake your head in wonder. As I mentioned previously, Matt moved in. He bought the Dart and turned the motor into the Land Of Many Small Pieces which found their way into our living room (?!!!) Imagine sitting on your sofa in the living room and turning to set your beer on the end table and finding
..a 318 block? Once you've taken a couple pulls off your beer, it will stand up just fine in the lifter galley. (Just as long as the fluid level does not exceed the angle of the dangle). Trust me on this one.
It also works well for holding Doritos and bean dip, as well. Things you didn't know
...
And probably don't ever care to.
One of the biggest changes to come with the robins of spring was a new job; actually working in the field I was training for. Somehow or other I managed to get Matt a job with me; this was probably the beginning of the unraveling of our friendship, as he rode to school and work with me in The Duke, and like a tick on your leg, once you know it's there, it begins to annoy the living hell out of you. Such was Matt; a veritable tick of a guy. Im a fairly easy-going person. It takes quite a bit of effort to annoy me. Matt put more than a little effort into the task, and by the time I left T-town we were barely on speaking terms. Fact of the matter was, I never even said goodbye to the sorry S.O.B. and I'll get to that part later; as it happened. Just suffice to say he began to annoy the living crap outta me, much more so than Al ever could have. We'll leave it at that for now.
Spring brought other changes as well; for one, it meant the completion of the second phase of school. See, in order to take your first FAA exam, you had to have completed General with a passing grade, then either Airframe or Powerplant. This would allow you to take the FAA exam for the respective course. In my case, it was Powerplant. So in the spring of '79 I finished up powerplant and went down to the local FAA office and took the exam. Results; passing, 98%. Shortly thereafter, I received my official FAA certificate in the mail; an Oh-Fishull FAA Aircraft Powerplant license. This was what opened the door for my new job.
This was Big Medicine. Although, in T-Town, licensed mechanics were a dime-a dozen. T-Town was a veritable A&P mill; flooding the local area with legions of aircraft mechanics of varied (and questionable) skill levels.
It landed me the job, anyway.
With a new job under my belt, and 2/3rds of the educational process down, I began to pick up speed and confidence.
Enter Airframe.
Powerplant had been a piece of cake;
a motor is a motor is a motor
..be it 340 cube V8 or a 7, 9, 18 or 36 cylinder radial, sporting a pressurized carb and a rotary axial-flow supercharger, or even a turbine engine. Yeah, there were differences, but the MoPar-minded individual could deal with them. Pistons still went up and down, and valves still opened via cam lobes and whatever magic joo-joo went along with it. Turbines was a step off the norm path, but the concepts were all the same.
It was flight controls and aircraft welding, and the like, that took a stretch of the MoPar Imagination to grasp.
But I did...
and well.
