Eddie Walton. !! Now there is a name that I had not thought of for a long, long time. And it is a true shame since he and I were the best of buds in high school. He and I did most everything together... swimming, hunting, fishing, working on cars.... the whole gamut. And Lil brothers story of the fish tree just triggered a whole series of memories of the mischief that we somehow managed to get into.
Now, in the 1960s, Courtenay was a sleepy little town of, oh perhaps 800 to 1000 people. Everyone knew everyone else. It was a true small town with all that is good in small town memories. No one ever locked their house, if you were having problems, and your folks were not home, then heck, just go over to the neighbours. There would be no more problems.... "Uncle so and so or Aunt such and such" would help. For a young person, it was a pretty good way to be brought up. One radio sation CFCP.... [or as we called it CF seepage], couple of cops.... you get the idea.
Now in school in those days, everyone had friends and even the young kids played, and were indeed encouraged, to play with the older kids. Kick the can, hide and seek, etc.. all the cool games that the kids do not play these days. But Eddie and I well,we were tight. When it came to getting into trouble, or at least spawning it, we two were, if not at the top of the list, darn close to it!!
I learned a great deal from Eddie and his dad. Most all of my early wrenching skills were acquired as a result of hanging out at his place and his dads garage. I was the ideas guy, the briany one, but the actual getting down and doing the work, putting 'tab A into slot B' sorta thing, well, that was the skill that Eddie had. I can remember one time, Eddie had picked up a 1953 Ford. Not the prettiest of cars, but to the rest of us in the gang, it was heaven, since none of us had any wheels at all. It was in pretty dismal condition when Eddie got it, but with some loving work and time, we got it up and running. Then, Eddie found a 409!!!
Remeber the old Jan and Dean song? 409? "She's real fine, my 409".... Well anyway, Eddie managed to tie into one of these and nothing would do but we had to shoehorn this big block into the 53 ford. And, a couple of weekends later, we had done it.I learned a lot on that project, I will tell you. Then we had to take it out for a test run. Now just outside of Courtenay, heading towards Campbell River, there was [is?] a golf course called Sunnydale Golf Course. And fortunately, right in front of that course, there was a beautiful one mile straight stretch, just perfect for running this motor up and seeing just what it could do. So with one of us at one end and another at the other end, signals all prearranged, Eddie headed off to try a test run.
Tires smoking, motor roaring, he lit it up and blasted off the line. It was a beautiful sight to see... or not see since the smoke from the tires pretty much obscured his passage. Back and forth he ran. Home we went and tinkered for another week and then, when the car was fully tuned up, we went back to our dragstrip. With our spotters at each end of the strip , Eddie once again lit it up. He was just passing the golf course entrance when the car came to a grinding stop. Seems as though there was a teeny bit too much power for the transmission... it had grenaded and there were pieces everywhere. Back to the drawing board. So, with a stronger trans, everything went well for eddie.... at least until he was caught speeding!!! Ya think?. Geeze, with that much power, it was inevitable.
But it was only a little speeding and the cop gave Eddie a ticket anyway. I mean 100 in a 60 zone??? That was hardly enough to get caught over. This would not do!! There had to be some type of payback for this insult. You could not do anything directly [ that was just not done] to the cop; I mean he was just doing his job. But the cop cars. Now they were open season. We put our heads together for a while and ran through the various ways to get a car. Sugar in the tank? Too destructive. Flatten the tires? Too temporary. Pencil around the distributor cap? Too easily fixed. What to do.... what to do.
Now in school at this point, in our science class, we were learning all about mercury [the element, not the planet]. And these days, it would NEVER happen but the teacher gave each student a little to play with. So we rolled it around on the desk, ran fingers through it, just got to examine the characteristics of it. The teacher had also explained the uses of mercury and one use was in switches. It conducted electricity!!!! Light bulb moment!!
At the end of the class, when the teacher gathered up the mercury, not quite all of it was retured. A tiny bit seemed to have found its way into my possession. Remember I said I was the ideas guy? Well, what might happen if some mercury was put into a distributor, I wondered.
We went to the police station and saw the cop cars there. Now to get the mercury into the distributor. Hey, I was just the guy who came up with the plan. Eddie was the fellow to carry it out. And, of course, he did. He crept into the yard, popped the hood and distributor cap, and put the mercury in. Everything was put back to normal and we went our merry way, absolutely positive that we had struck a blow for the downtrodden and oppressed. The nice thing about the plan was that mercury, being as heavy as it was, would sink into the deeper recesss of the distributor when the car was sitting or idling, or even going at a normal speed. However, once the speed of the car got up, and that distributor shaft got spinning, it should, by centripetal force lift the mercury up and short out the spark. When the speed dropped,, and the shaft slowed, the mercury dropped again and was hidden.
Now, I have to be honest here, we never actually had any dealings again with the cop, at least at a cop level. So we never actually saw the result of our mischief. However, the word went around the valley, amoung us younger crowd, that one car was having problems and the mechanics could not find the problem. Eddie and I always did keep our mouths shut about this, so no one, and I mean no one, ever did find out from us what we did.
However, I still wonder, to this day, if they ever did really figure it out.
Sunny skies
M
Now, in the 1960s, Courtenay was a sleepy little town of, oh perhaps 800 to 1000 people. Everyone knew everyone else. It was a true small town with all that is good in small town memories. No one ever locked their house, if you were having problems, and your folks were not home, then heck, just go over to the neighbours. There would be no more problems.... "Uncle so and so or Aunt such and such" would help. For a young person, it was a pretty good way to be brought up. One radio sation CFCP.... [or as we called it CF seepage], couple of cops.... you get the idea.
Now in school in those days, everyone had friends and even the young kids played, and were indeed encouraged, to play with the older kids. Kick the can, hide and seek, etc.. all the cool games that the kids do not play these days. But Eddie and I well,we were tight. When it came to getting into trouble, or at least spawning it, we two were, if not at the top of the list, darn close to it!!
I learned a great deal from Eddie and his dad. Most all of my early wrenching skills were acquired as a result of hanging out at his place and his dads garage. I was the ideas guy, the briany one, but the actual getting down and doing the work, putting 'tab A into slot B' sorta thing, well, that was the skill that Eddie had. I can remember one time, Eddie had picked up a 1953 Ford. Not the prettiest of cars, but to the rest of us in the gang, it was heaven, since none of us had any wheels at all. It was in pretty dismal condition when Eddie got it, but with some loving work and time, we got it up and running. Then, Eddie found a 409!!!
Remeber the old Jan and Dean song? 409? "She's real fine, my 409".... Well anyway, Eddie managed to tie into one of these and nothing would do but we had to shoehorn this big block into the 53 ford. And, a couple of weekends later, we had done it.I learned a lot on that project, I will tell you. Then we had to take it out for a test run. Now just outside of Courtenay, heading towards Campbell River, there was [is?] a golf course called Sunnydale Golf Course. And fortunately, right in front of that course, there was a beautiful one mile straight stretch, just perfect for running this motor up and seeing just what it could do. So with one of us at one end and another at the other end, signals all prearranged, Eddie headed off to try a test run.
Tires smoking, motor roaring, he lit it up and blasted off the line. It was a beautiful sight to see... or not see since the smoke from the tires pretty much obscured his passage. Back and forth he ran. Home we went and tinkered for another week and then, when the car was fully tuned up, we went back to our dragstrip. With our spotters at each end of the strip , Eddie once again lit it up. He was just passing the golf course entrance when the car came to a grinding stop. Seems as though there was a teeny bit too much power for the transmission... it had grenaded and there were pieces everywhere. Back to the drawing board. So, with a stronger trans, everything went well for eddie.... at least until he was caught speeding!!! Ya think?. Geeze, with that much power, it was inevitable.
But it was only a little speeding and the cop gave Eddie a ticket anyway. I mean 100 in a 60 zone??? That was hardly enough to get caught over. This would not do!! There had to be some type of payback for this insult. You could not do anything directly [ that was just not done] to the cop; I mean he was just doing his job. But the cop cars. Now they were open season. We put our heads together for a while and ran through the various ways to get a car. Sugar in the tank? Too destructive. Flatten the tires? Too temporary. Pencil around the distributor cap? Too easily fixed. What to do.... what to do.
Now in school at this point, in our science class, we were learning all about mercury [the element, not the planet]. And these days, it would NEVER happen but the teacher gave each student a little to play with. So we rolled it around on the desk, ran fingers through it, just got to examine the characteristics of it. The teacher had also explained the uses of mercury and one use was in switches. It conducted electricity!!!! Light bulb moment!!
At the end of the class, when the teacher gathered up the mercury, not quite all of it was retured. A tiny bit seemed to have found its way into my possession. Remember I said I was the ideas guy? Well, what might happen if some mercury was put into a distributor, I wondered.We went to the police station and saw the cop cars there. Now to get the mercury into the distributor. Hey, I was just the guy who came up with the plan. Eddie was the fellow to carry it out. And, of course, he did. He crept into the yard, popped the hood and distributor cap, and put the mercury in. Everything was put back to normal and we went our merry way, absolutely positive that we had struck a blow for the downtrodden and oppressed. The nice thing about the plan was that mercury, being as heavy as it was, would sink into the deeper recesss of the distributor when the car was sitting or idling, or even going at a normal speed. However, once the speed of the car got up, and that distributor shaft got spinning, it should, by centripetal force lift the mercury up and short out the spark. When the speed dropped,, and the shaft slowed, the mercury dropped again and was hidden.
Now, I have to be honest here, we never actually had any dealings again with the cop, at least at a cop level. So we never actually saw the result of our mischief. However, the word went around the valley, amoung us younger crowd, that one car was having problems and the mechanics could not find the problem. Eddie and I always did keep our mouths shut about this, so no one, and I mean no one, ever did find out from us what we did.
However, I still wonder, to this day, if they ever did really figure it out.
Sunny skies
M
I was never one to get into much mischief as a child or now as an adult. Thanks for posting this story, very enjoyable and funny. Please have a great day! Kelley (Texas) 
