After repatriating Theseia, I had to find a replacement engine for her. I hit up Craigslist in Billings and located an AMC 360 for a whopping $250. I borrowed the vambulance from my friend and scheduled a trip down to Billings to pick it up.
In between the time I scheduled the trip and the time I actually took it, I saw a second engine, an AMC304, pop up in Roundup for $200. Deciding my time was worth that much and then some if I had to make a second trip, I decided to buy it, too. The decision was eased by the assurances from my friend that he would buy the spare off me if it wasn't needed.
The big day arrived and I headed down pulling a trailer with an engine hoist. Complete side note, but it is extremely hard to find parking with a trailer in Billings.
Anyway, what I ended up being struck by was the difference between the men I purchased the engines from. The first address took me to an upscale suburb of Billings. The house was probably seven figures or at least pushing it very hard. The yard was immaculate, as were the yards of all the surrounding houses. There was a shop bay in which the engine was residing attached to two-car garage in which the donor vehicle was. The owner was a former software engineer in the early days of LIS's and had obviously chosen a good manager for his IRA.
The shop was organized, all the tools hanging up, the workbenches clean. The engine I was buying was mounted on a roll-around cradle, which let us roll it right to the rear door before having to lift. My only gripe was the amount of coolant still in the block, which made a bit of a mess in back. After we got it loaded and paid for, he invited me into his garage to look at the donor vehicle, a late-'70s/early-'80s J10 in stunning condition. The engine compartment was spotless and held a beautifully overhauled V8. Sparkly-flecked block paint. Chrome valve covers. Not a spot of grease anywhere. I could have eaten off the air intake. I've never really wanted a J10, always planning on getting an FC150 or -170 if I want a Jeep truck, but I had to admit that one was a sight to behold.
I had a little additional running around to do, plus the second guy worked nights, so he wouldn't be up until early afternoon. That was fine, as I had forgotten my checkbook and had to hit an ATM for cash. The first guy had PayPal.
When I rolled into his neighborhood south of Roundup, it was obvious that I was in a different world from the first. Instead of a palatial house, this man lived in a singlewide. Rather than a roll-around cradle sitting on smooth enameled concrete, the 304 was sitting on a tire on a gravel shed floor. We ended up having to lift it onto his pickup tailgate, put the lift back into the trailer I was pulling, then back the pickup up to the trailer and lift the engine off the tailgate and into the trailer. It was a mess, but eventually I had it strapped down and ready to roll.
At which point, this guy, too, invited me to check out the donor vehicle, in this case a early-'70s AMC Javelin. Again, the vehicle was in immaculate condition. Beautiful red, white, and blue racing scheme. Reupholstered leather interior. Correct badging. I personally prefer sleeper cars, my dream being the 1963 1/2 Ford Falcon, but once again, I could appreciate the time and effort this man had put into the vehicle.
As I drove away, I couldn't help thinking about the stark contrast between the two men's lifestyles. One lives a bleached-white-collar retired life in a suburb, while the other is continually grinding away at his blue-collar job. I can't imagine those two ever even meeting in casual life.
Yet I can easily imagine them crossing paths at a classic car show. They share a passion for restoration. And while I am less interested in faithful restoration and more interested in adapting to function (AMC never stuck a 360 in a CJ after all, and that's the least I intend to do to her eventually), they each crossed my path because of a shared love of tinkering with old rigs.
I think part of the problem in America today is that interests are assumed to be polarized. A software engineer? Oh, he must drive the latest Tesla so he doesn't have to get his hands greasy. He probably doesn't even know how to change his own flat.
The big problem is that feeds into the way people pick their hobbies. It's interesting to note that young boys like to draw at the same rates as young girls, yet within a few years of being told by teachers not to draw violent pictures, boys en masse refer to drawing as girly. So if it's assumed that gearhead-ing is a blue-collar pastime best accompanied by cheap beer and country music, white-collar kids will be less and less inclined to take it up, choosing other pastimes instead. And vice versa.
But if we can learn to disassociate hobbies with demographics, then maybe we can return to white-collar and blue-collar workers bowling in the same leagues, belonging to the same pick-up hockey teams, and going to the same gyms. And who knows, maybe if more of that happened, we'd see people of other lifestyles as teammates first rather than enemies.
