It was a weird feeling leaving DMV that day.  I wanted to be ecstatic.  But the car was far from being road-legal and the only thing keeping me from the open road was my ability to complete the car. Instead of ecstatic, I felt an odd sense of foreboding at the work to come.

Needless to say, I’ve practically been living in the garage since that day.  Yes, the car was drivable but lacking many essentials for road-worthiness.  

But mistakes have been made. Sometimes twice.

I was welding something near my daughter’s bike and thought I’d throw an old rag (made from a canvas curtain) over the bike for protection.  I was also standing on the edge of the canvas while I welded.  As I welded I realized the inside of my helmet was changing to a strange shade of orange. I pulled the welding helmet back to realize I was standing in knee-high flames because the canvas had caught fire. I threw the canvas in the yard and, thankfully, the only damage in the garage was one melted tire on my daughter’s bike.

Then, a week later, I was welding on the rear of the Locost dangerously near open fuel lines (I’d taken the fuel tank out); I decided to cover the lines with a towel and a metal plate.  After welding I smelled something strange. I lifted the metal plate to find the towel on fire. I threw the towel off the car but then the fuel at the end of the fuel line lit on fire. Through some strange mixture of prayer, possible divine intervention, and effort, I managed to extinguish the fuel line by blowing and tamping on it.  Man, that incident made me worried that five years of work was about to go up in flames.

Yeah, five years.  I bought this car on a rainy March 1st, 2016, and then I realized I didn’t know how to get it home (thanks for the save Andrew!).

Well, I should qualify that last paragraph. I didn’t really buy “this car”; I bought some metal frame rails, a nose cone, some body panels, and a steering rack; and I’d use very little of it (without major modifications). I think only the nose and hood have survived as-was.

But it finally drives. And the kids already love going for rides around the neighborhood.  We’ve likely made too many “test” runs.  The other day I mentioned to a neighbor that I’d worked on the car five years. His response was, “Yeah, that motor sounds like you’ve worked on it five years.”  I’ll translate – “That thing is loud”.

He’s not the only person I’ve talked car with lately; the cars and coffee gatherings have started again.  Recently, I went to one in Arizona and one in Oregon and noticed a big difference.  In Arizona only a few people, presumably those more fragile, wore a (countenance wrapper). In Oregon big signs around the perimeter of the property warned that everyone entering the parking lot must wear the (wrapper) and the number of allowed cars was limited to keep attendance low.

In the future, you may wonder why I wrote “(countenance wrapper)”.  If I call it what it is, I’ll be censored.  It happened several posts ago.  I mentioned a beer, that shared the same name as their obsession, and received warning labels, preaching their doctrine, in my blog.

If you’re my descendant, reading this years in the future, know this – our family was aware things weren’t as proclaimed.  But “they” controlled the narrative. And they became addicted to their narrative, because they believed it defined them.  They were told their actions were virtue, and they didn’t want to give-up their new-found virtue.

Here’s a picture of me, after wearing a (countenance wrapper) in the garage environment.  Notice the evidence of intrusion below my nostrils. I’ve had the same thing happen painting, but with much more intrusion. Would I wear a paper (wrapper) into a poisonous atmosphere expecting protection?  Not a chance. They’re largely ineffective. Air, like most things, follows the path of least resistance, which means an unsealed (wrapper) just flows around the edges. Garage projects taught me that, not politics. I independently stress-tested the (countenance wrapper) long before 2019.  Since 2019 I’ve been watching in dumb-founded disbelief at the faith and virtue people have placed in the (countenance wrapper).