Dr No[Moderator Omega - Wristscan]
34897
Coupla weekends ago, yours truly and SWMBO drove to Nipomo . . .
Aug 09, 2019,18:30 PM
. . . just to dine at Jocko's, reputedly the best steak house west of the Mississippi. We were told there would either be an hour wait for a dining room table, or a table in the bar immediately.
So we took the available table. Noisy, TVs, and crammed, but seated right away.
A few minutes later, two old geezers take the table next to ours, and started up a conversation. The talkative one, Steve, had ten rods, all Chevy's except one (Ford), based in Lakewood. The other (Dan?) guy was from Bakersfield; he'd taken the bus from Bakersfield to Lakewood to meet up with Steve, and the pair drove up to Nipomo to meet up with a bunch of other guys into planes and cars.
The other guy was the son of an aviation pioneer (can't remember his name, either), and born blind. He was into building rods at an early age, and (so the story goes) a master engine builder.
How masterful?
Well, he was at a drag race (when or where, I can't remember) when a competitor complained about his engine not running right. No one could figure out the problem. Our blind engine builder listened for a minute, then said, "It's the number seven intake." Sure enough, when the engine was torn down, it was the number seven intake valve.