Never The Same #74 Workin’ Hard for his Money—and Fame

As we know, from childhood, Kirk's life circumnavigated like a stock car around racing and car related matters, that takes money and for that takes working.

 

            Cue: “Workin’ for a Livin’”   https://youtu.be/KLATbzMutkc?si=aOITdVLxTiotr0o4

 

            Kirk continued working at the Georgi-Pacific drywall plant during the day and working on his stock car project at night. He knew starting to build his car from scratch would be a big, long challenging job. Because he never built a car from the ground up, he didn’t have a fully developed conception to what extent the project meant for him. Surely, lots of work; lots of money.

            So Sarah Elizabeth arrived back into his life after the concert and Kirk’s subsequent break up with Farrah. Did he miss Farrah? Will he miss her? Weeeellll, not really. You know what they say about “a bird in hand…” and Sarah returned to be his bird. Sarah and Kirk picked up where they had left off like there hadn’t been more than a week missing between visits when it had been about four months. Life continues for Kirk in uncanny ways.

            Kirk, working at the plant, just carried on like those others that remained, that is, those who didn’t take an early retirement, which Kirk didn’t qualify for, or those who didn’t take the offer to relocate in Georgia, or those who found another job which there weren’t that many available locally or anywhere in the sour economy. Kirk’s team of four was now down to three guys. Basically, in the warehouse, a forklift driver and two guys to heft, handle and strap together the sheets of drywall that came in 8-, 10-, 12-, and 16-foot lengths. To say the least, the guys didn’t like handling the sixteen footers. The plants twenty-four-hour production of drywall recently shrunk down to one eight-hour shift and even considering that the warehouse was getting full because there wasn’t much being shipped because of the housing market slump, and the season headed into winter where the building construction slowed anyway.

            Rumors ran rampant around the plant mainly because management couldn’t tell the workers much good or bad news concerning their future. Attending one of the meetings, Kirk thought the same as others who had gossiped that the management knew more than they let on. Kirk didn’t let the possibility of a massive layoff bother him seeing he had enough time working to collect unemployment, lived at home and basically had no living expenses. So Kirk just kept working, collecting his paycheck and putting most of it into his stock car.

            Back in his garage, Kirk carefully learned the ways of the pipe bender. He knew a few things about bending pipe with a little experience bending conduit for electrical cables. There’s a big difference in handling and price between half-inch conduit and two-and-a-half-inch black steel pipe.

            The two main backbones of the roll cage that run along the sides from frame to along the roof. Learning to use the bender and getting the right radius on the bends are necessary to fit the cage tightly inside the body to almost hide the roll cage. At least that was the goal. Trouble was that these two pieces, very major pieces remained the most important, but must be completed first, equaling a lot of stress and strain added to the task.  Nevertheless, this equates to on-the-job training for Kirk the student.

            Starting out to do the job and get the first two and most important arches bent, he put several straightened-out clothes hangers together and bent the one long piece to fit inside the Pinto body. Because of the flimsiness of the wire Kirk had to handle it carefully and laid it down on the concrete floor on the largest open space he had behind the car frame. With a piece of chalk, he lined out the shape of the wire on the floor. This took a few tries because he bumped the wire trying to keep the lines as close to the bent wire as he could. He remeasured the legs of the arch to make sure they’d be long enough. With that steadfastly in mind he dragged out one length of pipe the metal company had nicely delivered and stacked up for him. No doubt Kirk felt excited to get going and bend pipe, but he knew he couldn’t rush with the risk of bending the pipe wrong. Yeah, he could cut up and use pieces of a mistakenly bent pipe, but he didn’t want to risk an entire length because his pipe stock may be tight.

            Laying the pipe on the floor along the chalk marks, he added marks on the pipe to give him a reference area that would get bent. He let it lay on the floor for a few minutes as he eyed it up and down not really wanting to jump in and make the plunge to start bending. With an idea, he drew straight lines on the pipe parallel with the pipe’s length. This would give him a reference to tell him that he kept the line in the direction of the bend. So, if his thinking worked correctly, the line would end up right in the middle, up and around the bend. If the line ended up curved or jiggled it meant he didn’t put the pipe in the bender right before he bent. He’d make sure to put the line centered on the outside of the bender every time, carefully so.  Oddly, the bender is set up to sit flat on the floor to make the bends vertically either up or down, but for Kirk to follow is schematic on the floor he’d have to use the bender on its side.

            On a side note, the weather grew cooler with every passing day. Kirk felt okay doing vigorous physical work to keep warm but during the slow tedious work and deep computations the cool seeped in through Kirk’s flannel and sweatshirt layers. So Kirk needed a source of heat. In amongst some stuff from Kirk’s grandmother’s old farm that his father retrieved and stock piled was an ancient gas space heater. Who knew how old it was? Maybe before World War II well before any kind of safety concerns. These stoves didn’t have any kind of safety guards or vents to the outside, so propane fumes just roll out into the area being heated. Kirk didn’t worry too much seeing his barn garage had a healthy exchange of air meaning the air flowed in and out from outside through gaps and cracks in the walls. Kirk picked up a propane tank, a big one, a regulator and copper tubing. He hooked up the stove and had the residential gas man “Burnwell Propane” who supplied the house as well. Yeah, propane does burn well. So the friendly propane and propane accessory man checked for leaks after filling the tank and Kirk fired it off. Of course, it smelled fumy and dangerous, so addressing the dangerous fire hazard, Kirk at least got a couple sheets of fireproof cement board to put up behind it. Better ‘n  nuthin’ when dealing with hot, fire breathing appliances.

            Extending the side note, the interior walls of the Kirk’s garage still had remnants of the white wash on the walls and ceiling from the cow stable use a long time ago. The overhead beams were logs from primitive building techniques with rough-cut boards that held bales of hay above in the haymow. He dealt with the huge old freezer with the non-childproof doors sitting in the corner taking up space there. It now held welding supplies and an assortment of transmission and engine parts.  A weathered, bent cardboard sign hung on the wall that read “Leave ‘em Laughing” with an arrow. Kirk and his high school pal Dan ripped it off a tree in the local state park. He always wondered if whoever was supposed to attend the event got lost because they took the sign. On a makeshift plywood door to the silo room where the propane tank now resided, Jon wrote in large letters, “Number 36 can be beat.” This was in reference to the cash car running on the track that apparently no one could beat. Well, that might help maintain Kirk’s enthusiasm and motivation to build a perfect stock car�"a much faster car.

            So, back to the project, slowly and surely Kirk began bending pipe. Not an overly exciting undertaking, more of an industrial, a tiresome work-related task, but one he needed to pay attention to and get right. Almost 100 percent correct. He couldn’t actually bend the pipe over his chalk marks on the floor because the marks located on the floor’s widest space while Kirk handling the long length of the pipe would not have the maneuvering space because of the walls and other things in the shop.

            Despite these problems, he did his best, hoping he wouldn’t make any drastically incorrect bends because once bent a person can’t unbend the pipe without making a horrible mess of it. Putting the pipe in the bender following he began the process. The bender has two heavy iron saddle-like dies or valleys that the pipe slides in between the two. Closing the hydraulic valve, Kirk started pumping with the handle. Slowly, very slowly, but powerfully, the one die moved up to press into the other forcing the pipe to curl. It would be easy just to keep bending until it made a forty-five-degree curvature, but that is not what Kirk desired, so he stopped short at what he thought he required. Releasing the pressure with the valve, he moved the now bent pipe out of the bender. He eyed up his chalk mark and again applied pressure being careful not to let the pipe slip out of position. Carefully dragging his coat hanger pattern over the pipe to eyeball he bent the pipe twice closer to the wire pattern. Moving down the pipe length to his other marks, he repeated all that bend and move, bend and move. When it’s said to be a tedious process remains an understatement.

            Eventually, he got the bends far enough along that he could lay the pipe on the chalk marks, mind you this was after a couple hours of sweating, measuring, bending, while hoping he was lucky enough not to make a mistake. Well, it looked close much to his relief, but he saw the bends needed just a bit more bending. Wrestling the pipe back into the bender, which is more difficult now that it was bowed, he applied a bit more pressure to make a tad more bend.  After all that, he found the bends looked good. He measured the legs, the straight lengths that he hopefully thought would be long enough to reach from the roof to the frame and indeed they were longer than needed. Examining the bent pipe, the frame and the body, Kirk knew he couldn’t set the pipe into position to measure, cut to length and weld by himself. Of course, he predicted that he would need help. He went ahead to make the second arch, a twin of the first because he could suspend the first arch above the second as he bent. Tedious, but easier than the first arch. This being a whole evening’s work, he called it a good result notwithstanding the fact that fumes from the space heater had given him a headache. 

            The next evening, Kirk went back to his garage to survey his handiwork. Examining the two arches, he couldn’t say he was overly pleased with how they looked. They were close but weren’t exactly the same which as outlined remained a tedious operation. He let them lay there for whenever he had help. He called Jon for that help on Saturday, but to Kirk’s delight, Jon told him he’d be happy to come over on Friday night and get to work.  

            In the meantime, Kirk had a couple evenings to ponder and pittle around the bare bones, the scarce beginnings, of his stock car. Well, the bare frame sat there on jack stands more or less at a height the finished car would sit which is about six inches off the ground. He had set the bare engine block and empty transmission case on the floor between the frame rails. That assembly didn’t matter relative to the rear axle, but they needed to be situated in the correct position behind the front suspension for good weight distribution, better than the old car, and the further consideration that the engine must be placed forward of the body firewall.

            Well, that position is up for debate because of the use of cut down bodies like the coupe and Pinto, he had some flexibility in where the firewall actually is located. Maybe a couple inches to and fro, but nevertheless it needed to be considered. Wrestling the flimsy body into place, he eyed it up against the engine, but found it lined up with the chalk marks he had placed before. Feeling stupid bout that, but then again relieved that his earlier and current calculations matched front and back. Amazing!  

            While the body sat there, Kirk envisioned the body painted his iconic John Deere green and yellow. The Pinto body didn’t have what you would call a “sporty’ silhouette, but Kirk thought that at least adding a duck tail spoiler on the rear deck and an artistic, or more correctly, a tough looking paint job, it would look low and cool on the track, or least he imagined so at his present envisioning. He had sooo much work to do before he had to worry about that kind of final touches. Maybe next May!

            Removing the body again, he then wheeled the cutting torches closer to the frame.  The overall long length of the frame bothered Kirk ever since bringing it home.  Of course, the wheel base wasn’t overly long, but the front and back “horns” stuck out maybe three feet in the back and two in the front. These weren’t boxed like the rest of the frame and had several large holes in them for bumpers, grill, and cargo bed mounts. They had to go, so donning his minimal safety gear namely goggles and leather gloves, he went after it.

            With the torch burning blue hot, he set about cutting. The sparks either bounced off his shirt and jeans or burned through the same, while Kirk always hoped for the former versus the latter though knew he usually got a few burn throughs to his skin. Kirk was tough and relished the pain of micro burns. With a quick look and consideration, he drew chalk lines across the rear horns. With sparks flying and molten slag falling on the floor, he torched them off rather quickly. Constantly rather leery about burning down the garage and subsequently the barn, Kirk pulled his goggles down to around his neck and scanned around his work area for any fires. None spotted. Because of his vigilance in his space, he remained much more careful here than at his brother in laws garage where inflammable substances and liquids laid around. Yeah, fires frequently broke out.  Not anything major, but Kirk thought if any kind of fire broke out in his barn garage it would all be over. His father never said a word about Kirk using torches and welders inside the barn. Maybe he didn’t know or more likely didn’t care what Kirk did like always.

            After chopping those off, Kirk looked at the shabby result, so he got the grinder out to commence into cleaning up his cuts. Then, seeing he had the grinder in his hands, he decided to clean up the frame which was a lot of territory to cover. Head down, he started out with dust and sparks flying and noise assaulting his ears. The frame wasn’t bad as he had examined when he bought it, but it had a good layer of surface rust on it. It didn’t take long to fill the garage with a haze of rusty, metal smell dust on top of the propane fumes. It took Kirk two long evenings to grind the frame down to an acceptable, shiny condition. He could live with that as progress moved along.

            ***

            Friday rolled around, where work usually progressed rapidly all the workers knowing the weekend drew near. Kirk felt jazzed to begin really working on the stock car namely those first two, main roll cage arches. With Jon’s help he could get them set correctly in place and spot welded in place. After that, Kirk could do almost the rest of the cage by himself, even though he’d appreciate the welding Jon could help with. Jon, Kirk had to admit, was a better welder than he.

            Just before noontime, one of the laborers came over to the warehouse to tell the three of them that there was going to be a meeting in the lunchroom. Kirk glanced at his coworkers younger Jeff and older Stan, who had the most to lose; he perceived hangdog expressions from them both. They finished stacking a drywall pallet, strapping it tight and stacking it high on the growing stacks. They shut down the forklift and moseyed down to the lunchroom their boots clanking on the elevated steel decking walkway.

            “What do’ya think Robert has to tell us this time? Good or bad, maybe an extension? Hopefully?” Jeff asked looking chagrined.

            Stan looked grim. “They’ve been warning us for over a month now.” He slowly shook his head. “I think, it can’t be good.”

            Kirk, bringing up the rear and ever the conversationalist, said nothing, but his head spun and his stomach surged. He had no comments; he had no committed thoughts.

            The lunchroom appeared already packed with everyone that could be pulled off their positions without shutting down production. Walking in, Kirk noticed there were some guys attending that had already been laid off, telling him the worse was to come the Regional Director Mister Smythe, the boss over Robert the plant manager, attended, speaking to Robert in hushed words. Stan and Jeff spoke with some of the other distraught workers. From what Kirk gathered, this meeting would be IT.

            Robert clapped his hands once. The room’s noise dwindled. “Mister Smythe has come a personally to convey some words to pass along to us all. Yes, I’m included in what we’re going through so don’t think I’m getting any different treatment than what options you all have in these circumstances. Mister Smythe.”

            Robert stood tall lanky and fit while Mister Smythe stood shorter and quite stout who stepped forward.

            “I know my presence here speaks wonders to you all,” said Smythe in a booming voice. “I can’t sugar coat what I have to say, so I’m just saying plain and simple. This plant is closing. For good. It’s not because in any way you’ve dropped the ball on the job you’ve done. I’m here to let you know that you’ve all kept your standard of excellence of quality and production numbers to the highest standards of the company. With that said, production of this storied plant will cease operation in two weeks, two weeks from today. To let you know, there are still opportunities at our other plants if you’re interested in relocating. Production folks will be laid off on that day, though other functions may stay longer to button up the plant. You all will be contacted individually in the meantime. Thank you all for your hard work and good luck in your future endeavors.”

            Robert stepped forward. “Thank you all for coming. I’ll personally tell those coworkers that are out there working what was said here. Like Mister Smythe said, I’ll be personally contacting you in the next two weeks. Thank you, all.”  He turned and took a heavy swig from a vending machine coffee cup.

            Stan turned to Jeff and Kirk and whispered with a grin. “I wonder what’s actually in that cup.”  

            The three of them returned to the warehouse with nary a word shared. They walked in a daze, stunned with the news they knew was  coming.

            Kirk didn’t know it at the time, but this single event was one in a series that would cause Kirk to be Never the Same as never before!