[wrenchmen]

Man does this thread bring back memories!....my friend "onemoregoat74" and I lived all your stories and then some!...we had a blast in our neighborhood!....Tommy, (onemoregoat74), was a crazy, insane, fearless kid who was riding a Suzuki RM80, while we all rode mini-bikes!...Tommy was always pushing the envelope, he would use the local landfill behind my house to perfect his skills. The town dump,Caterpillar loader operator would burry the garbage and create a huge "bowl' in the ground, Tommy would use this ramp created by the loader as a jump and scream his suzuki up the perpedicular ramp, launching himself skyward!....he would get some crazy air and always land perfectly.

Myself on the other hand, remember taking a jump near the local deli, with my BMX bike and the front wheel falling off, me going over the handle bars and my front wheel continuing to roll onward and hit a parked car.

Tommy and I put together a rocket, made from toilet paper tubes taped to one another, we attached 3 "C" rocket engines together with a single twisted fuse and launched it in the field behind his house, The rocket soared skyward and than suddenly drifted down towards earth, just as it was horizontal to the ground, the 2 other engines ignited and propelled it like a cruise missle towards the center of town!...we dont know where it landed as we were hiding in his basement!

Tommys Mom was the greatest, we would both peddle are azzes off on a schwinn bike with a banana seat and powerslide into a mud puddle at the end of his street, Tommys Mom would call us "Baba-Le-owns"....and wash my clothes so my mom had no idea what a dumb ass I was!

Tommy was the first one to get a car, he bought a 67 or 68 firebird from a local dude, It had a 428 in it!...would have been a great car to keep!...dont remember what happened to it, He later picked up a 60 somethin Olds cutlass with a small block chevy, cool car, nice square, clean lines.

I bought a 68 firebird 400, 4speed vert, my GF was there to help me fix it up and make it street worthy.....and now, she is my Wife, 2 boys and a girl later, she perfectly cleans and rides with me to car shows in my 70 Lemans Sport.

My other good friend, kevin, had a 67 Camaro RS, cool car with hide-away headlights, we removed the engine, a 327 we were told, and Kevin brought it to a local machine shop for a performance rebuild "Blueprint/Balance"....they called to say it was done and Kevin said "I am here to pick up my 327"...the guy replied, 327, that was a 305, here it is all done.....we were to young and had no knowledge whatsoever to dispute his claim, Kevin installed the 305 in his RS camaro....hell, we had no clue, I couldnt even tell you what heads were on my 400!
Years later I worked with a guy who built race engines for Wall Stadium in NJ, he said D&R performance, where Kevin had his engine rebuilt, was nototrius for scamming people out of high performance parts and exchanging them for less desireable stuff!
I truly believe his engine was a 327!

Wow...time flys by,...I miss those days, Bon-fires in the woods, partying with good friends, cruisin the streets of seaside, woods ridin' all day in a 4x4 Ford, only to have the front wheel fall off and walking through a pitch dark cedar swamp for 3 hours to get home, foolin around with my GF in my 76 Jeep Cherokee on a fire trail in the pines!
Those were the days!