Laying the Foundation
By Jeff Pamer
If I had one wish from what was overall, a wonderful childhood, it would have been more taking things apart and putting them back together. Actually, there just wasn’t much of the latter going on once I figured out where the screwdrivers were. The former, as my Mum can attest, was in full swing. I’d play with a toy for a while, then become overly curious about how it worked. My Lamborghini Countach remote-controlled car was one of my more tragic victims of this compulsion. I couldn’t help myself. What I really could have used was someone to show me how it all worked and more even than that, how to put it back together.
Later in my adolescence, as school continued to be a struggle for me, I started to do my own reading on how things work. Books from the library on automotive, motorcycle, and even helicopter mechanics were poured over. Some of the better books had diagrams that painted a perfect picture for me of how the parts danced together. I started to plan to go to school to be an auto tech.
Once I was 18, I didn’t run off to school. I decided to take a break in between and get a job. The first of which was in the restaurant industry. After quickly getting fired as a busboy at a local restaurant(which if you know anything about me outside of this site is quite ironic), I got a job at a local auto shop as the nighttime clean-up kid. I was 18 and thought that this was my foot in the door to my future. A place I finally belonged. This was the dream.
It started that way too. The shop Manager was named Norm. He was a bit ornery and did not seem very well-liked around the shop, but nothing I couldn’t handle. What I remember most about him though, is that he had just bought a brand new first gen Porsche Boxter. I wondered even at my young age how he could afford it, and I’m still not sure that he could. Regardless, he was very proud of it. He gave me a tour and showed me where all the cleaning supplies were. I remember the sounds and smells. The impact guns loudly rattling, a sound that would be abrasive to most but sung to me. The smell of oil, exhaust, and gasoline filled me with a sense of belonging. Looking down briefly as I followed behind him I remember the concrete floor painted bright red to match the color scheme of the Canadian chain automotive retailer. I would soon be tasked to clean it to a shine every night after the mechanics go home. Best of all was when he showed me where I could get my branded coveralls in the changing room. I wasn’t important enough to have my name on them, so that was absent on mine, which showed where I belonged in the order of things: firmly at the bottom. I didn’t care though. I loved putting those things on every day. In the summer I tied the arms around my waist with only a ribbed tank top on. I remember never in my life feeling more myself. What that says about me, not sure, but it’s true. It began as I envisioned it when I was buried in those library books
After a few months, the reality was that I had never been subjected to the forced company of a pack of more miserable lifelong losers that than that group of cranky mechanics. They were just the worst. Constantly bitching about their life choices. Comments like “you like cars kid? Then don’t become a mechanic” seemed as endless as the trash they left around knowing I would pick it up. If they hated being automotive techs, then I have no idea, even as a writer, how to properly describe the misery that they spewed when leaving the shop to go to their lives at home. More offensive to me than any of it though was other than Norm, and the two young apprentices, the techs all drove the most depressing, boring, and uninspired cars. Like they needed to make sure that when they drove away from the job they hated, to head to the family they hated more, they needed the journey between the two to be misery as well. I do remember that there was one that took an interest in me. Started to show me a thing or two, and I began to get this excited feeling going to work for a few days. Not only that I was learning, but also as a pretty lonely guy, who struggled to make friends, felt like I was making one. After a few days of chatting and helping, he started to explain to me how he also ran his own business on the side, and how much extra money he was making. He asked if I’d like to come by his house on the weekend. He was having a few friends over and I can learn more about Amway and how to start my own business.
I was enrolled in college the next semester.
I was too young to trust my instincts and to be fair, I’m not sure if I had any to speak of. I don’t like to think back on the choices I have made and wonder what could have been. It’s a roller coaster that we’re on, and if you take one piece of the puzzle out, you could lose so much of what ended up being an amazing ride. We are made up of genes from our families and the experiences that we live. I’m happy with how I ended up and wouldn’t change a thing. With that said though, I’ve carried the need to build, wrench, fix, and understand mechanical things my whole life. I’ve never had time to go to school for it, but at 43 years old, it seemed fitting that I would lean into that drive the same way I’ve done everything. I’ll figure it out on my own and if I’m lucky, surround myself with people who can help me a bit when I get stuck.
What I also wouldn’t change is buying the 1981 CB 750K that I’ve been dragging around for the past 6 years. That bike is my chance to resurrect something that was long forgotten. Lots of people make projects like this look easy, and I envy them. That has not and will not be my journey with this bike. As we move through the story in upcoming posts, about this Honda, I’ll prove that over and over. Mistakes already made will be shared, and so will the horrors to come.
I cannot wait.
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