Kickin' Rocks

with Don Pennington

Scrappin' Cadillacs and Hangin' Razor Wire

Messin' with cars is gettin' real complicated. Used to be you'd drag an old car home, tear it apart in the driveway, put the good parts in the garage then go find another car. Hulks ( I mean perfectly good left over parts) that piled up in the front yard weren't really a problem, as we saw it. The reason we did all this was to eventually get a hot rod that ran pretty good and stopped sorta okay, which is not nearly as important as the rush you get from smokin' the hides a few times. Tire smoke and bangin' gears is what it's all about. On any given Saturday, after cartoons, you could grab a coolie, jump in the old flivver, meet up with the boys and go do something. Bolting the cars together is almost as much fun as rippin' through the neighborhood streets and those carcasses lying in the yard are just part of the deal... besides they are only going to be there for a day or two, or so you told the wife. But time does get away from a guy as is evidenced by the two dead lawn mowers shoved under one of those bodies, which is not all bad because it keeps grass from growing to an unsightly length, "it can't grow if the sun don't hit it" (Murphy's Law #8,612).

A side issue when messin' with cars is keeping the support team on board, meaning the wife and kiddies. The kids aren't much of a problem, you can tell them to sit down and shut-up, but a little tact is in order when dealing with the owner of half your stuff. Remember when we had holidays for several different presidents, then the government bunched them all together to save money... they said. Well we can do the same thing but for a different reason. Many of us guys have trouble remembering dates, especially those connected with the biscuit burner. We need a way to remember her dates like birthday and anniversary, she'll like that. We need to pick a "special day for us" (meaning you and her, not you and me, not that I wouldn't want to spend a little time with you, but...). Let's see, how about somewhere in June, you can tell her it's June because it's romantic... June weddings, a nice month to take a vacation just the two of you, there's a lot of stuff you can do together, she'll like that too! Since it's June, how about the same week-end as... oh say... the LA Roadster deal of one of the buh-zillion Goodguys events, that'll make it easy to remember the date. When she backs you up against the wall and points to the calendar and quizes you about  "our date" falling on a car thing week-end, get that suprised look on you face and with mealy mouth engaged, claim utter surprise. You need to get a mirror and practice this face distorting surprised look, because she WILL attack you on this, so be ready.

Thankfully the "support team" has long ago thrown their hands up regarding the stuff stacked around the yard and in the driveway. But your neighbors may be another issue. When you buy a house you get a thing about full disclosure, meaning the seller must tell you about the bad surprises before they become money surprises. If the house is in a 100 year flood plain and it's year 99, you need to know this. If the previous owner is now taking a five to ten state vacation for running a meth lab in the bedroom, you need to know this. If you just saw your house on the local Crime Channel explaining the dark red stains on the wall, the dug out area in the garage floor and the wod of yellow tape stuffed in the trash, you need to know this. A real hot rodder can overcome these things, these can be turned into cool stories but one thing they never tell you is... what are the neighbors like? Who are these people? How are they going to feel about a variety of old cars parked in the front yard and lining the street? Full psychological profiles should be supplied before you sign the loan papers along with police background checks of the neighbors, their immediate family, and if there have been any unfortunate episodes involving firearms or explosives. And then there are the Deed Restrictions. For those who don't know, these are rules that restrict what you can do with your property, like building a huge garage or parking more than five dead cars on the street, or painting your house purple and orange... this is crazy, you should be able to do whatever you want with your property.

Most neighbors are pretty cool, or they don't have the guts to get in your grille about the junk you drag home. Maybe you'll get lucky and have another hot rodder next door, if so your hope he keeps his junk off the front lawn, it's unsightly. If he is just a car guy, this could be a problem as a lot of weirdos that think they are car guys actually are four years into a five year lease of a Saab, so they consider it a collectible, and have filled the only shelf in their garage with virgin lambs  wool wash mitts (one for the tires and one for the paint), rubber dressing (4 kinds), leather cleaner, leather conditioner, glass cleaner, carpet shampoo, 14 different kinds of wax,, ph neutral car soap and a 3/8 drill motor with a buffer pad on the end that he bought on TV for $2.95 plus s&h (but he got a second one free so it was still a good deal even though the s&h was $24.95).  

If you have a neighbor that is cool with cars and talks your language, what more could you ask for? Or you've got one that is sorta okay with what you do, but it would be fine with him if you played golf instead. Now let me ask you, what would you rather look at, the passionate colors of a flamed deuce coupe storming up the street or some of those double knit wannabe pro golfer pants wrapped around a guy with the worst swing in the history. When something is wrong, it's just wrong! Then there is the enemy. The guy that hates everything you do and just can't seem to understand that the world does not spin around his psyco ego and bare fisted family boxing nights. This guy has an endless supply of wife beater tank tops and proudly strokes his mullet while yelling at the kids who have long since dove under the dog house when they hear "daddy's home". If you have a bad neighbor, there really isn't any fixing the problem this side of the business end of a .357 Python, so you have to be pro-active, take charge, run the show.

Sometime it's hard to tell the good neighbor from the bad. Sometimes they are just quiet and you need to watch for the small stuff like when YOU trim HIS tree that is leaning over YOUR driveway, you throw the trimmings where they belong... into his driveway, which unfortunately is the same place he parks his new Caddy... then he throws the brush back on your side along with last week's garbage... this is a bad sign, he doesn't think like you do. Somebody told me once that you keep your friends close, and you enemies closer. Maybe it's so you can find their soft spots. When you decide to be a pro-active neighbor antagonist, you need to know their soft spots. Do things that cannot be traced back to you or do stuff with misdirection like the egg on the car deal. First don't throw the eggs from your house over to his, this is a giveaway, go down the street before you hit the launch button, zero in on that same Caddy hood that he just repainted after the brush episode. Then to look like a good guy, get your wash bucket ready and when you hear him coming run over and start washing his car, he will think you are trying to help him, and don't forget the slams like... "those dam kids, if this happened to me I'd skin'em alive". This is of course if you want to stay unknown, but some guys we know would just as soon start a war with the neighbor and make sure he knew who was attacking him.    

Most of us just want to be left alone, sorry about the stuff in the yard, but that's who we are, just leave me alone. But if you have the guy next door that insists on making your life miserable, you have got to protect your turf. This is where the neighbor just doesn't know who he's screwing with, we are hot rodders and we know how to do stuff, we fought the wars and remember the tricks of the trade. So- here's a free million dollar idea for you, a book on "How to Win the Neighborhood Wars and Get Even with Your Neighbor". Here are a few things you can have for the book... plant fast growing bushy vines on the property line with razor wire inside, leave the razor wire silver so it stands out real good, you have the bushy vines so you don't have to look at it. You know that outside electrical outlet you had installed for the Christmas lights, wearing insulated gloves... plug the razor wire into that outlet. Then there is the 60 foot pole with what looks like a camera on top with a remote operated motor so you can follow him around his yard, if he is paranoid at all this will send him over the edge. Or you could park a couple of rusty old school buses with flat tires and full of trash in front of his house, or order ten yards of rock to be dumped in his driveway, or as close to his bedroom as you can get it put the 5000 watt amp and a couple of "big boomer" speakers programmed to play the barking dog/diesel engine/low flying helicopter tape at 2, 4 and 6 a.m. We can learn a lot of this stuff from the movies too, I especially like the Clint Eastwood movie with Clyde the orangutang, remember the "scrap the Caddy Clyde" deal, could this be fun or what? And... you can't be blamed... it was Clyde... whoever he is.

How about calling the Rainbow Coalition and asking them to send him an application to join, or better yet go ahead and sign him up, he will be getting rainbow stuff in the mail for years not to mention the trial subscription to Boys Can Be Fun Magazine. How about the sex offender flyer on the neighborhood telephone poles, or a directional mike aimed at his house with voice activated recorder so you can play if back and have a good hoot, or have the cable guy hook you into his computer DSL then you can visit X rated web sites and sign him up for all the free newsletters which will inspire many years of XXX emails. One of my personal favorites, not that I have done this, send a picture of a naked women to his house addressed to Mr.AND Mrs. Neighbor with the hand written inscription "remember me" or "thanks- can't wait to see you again... and I hope that rash clears up okay ".

Well enough of this foolishness. Tomorrow is my wife and my "special day", the mail comes about 10 a.m. so I need to get up early and check the mail box for some of those rainbow deals I've been getting. This new special day date thing worked good even though it is the first year. I'm thinkin' the wife and I will start off with a putt in the hot rod. Just lookin' at the hot rod calendar I see there are... coincidently... four... count'em FOUR hot rod events going on at the same time. Maybe we can cruise by just to see what's going on, could maybe stop at one or two, just for a minute, then maybe some antique shopping, there are a couple of shops I've found with lots of car toys... and things she'll like too. To cap the day off maybe a nice candle lit birthday/anniversary/whatever dinner at that new hot rod pizza joint, I think it's called Bennie's up on St. Johns, then head home for a nice quiet evening after a stop at the super market for soap, there's a pile of clothes and grease rags at home that need attention, the wife doesn't mind doing that stuff, it only takes a minute. Finally, we can fire up the surveillance camera tapes and see what the neighbor is up to.  It's gonna be a great day!