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In Personal Pursuit of Happiness
by DrEntropy
As a young person, my interest in all things mechanical was only overshadowed by a fascination with the photographic image. The ability to “steal a moment in time” with a camera. It started with my paternal grandfather’s photos of his various trips around the continent, taken with a 35mm Baldina camera and Kodachrome. The man had an “eye,” likely due to having been a National Geographic life member from the time of his youth. As a pre-teen, the images of Cypress Gardens water skiing exhibitions, Anasazi cliff dwellings, Canadian flower gardens, the Grand Canyon, all projected onto a large screen in his living room post-trip held me spellbound. I had to learn to do that!
The parents were fairly indulgent, they would encourage the curiosity. My younger brother and I received box cameras as Christmas gifts when I was eleven and soon dad became tired of dropping off and retrieving our developed black-and-white film. He got me a Kodak developing tank and kit of chemistry. It took many tries and much light struck film before there were any successful attempts at processing. The printing consisted of “Daylight Printing Paper” as contact prints only, but that set me on a path to a life as a photographer. And it was my good fortune to have a neighbor who was a second generation pro, his studio and darkroom were two streets away, at our summer home on Lake Erie. He had kids about the same age as my brother and I so we hung out together a lot in the season. His kids had no interest in photography but he saw my eagerness to learn and so mentored me, truly taught me the craft. By the time I was fourteen we had built a darkroom in the garage in western Pennsylvania, stealing a twelve by six foot piece of dad’s real estate.
On acquiring a drivers license a few years later I began the pursuit in earnest, hanging around the photo department of the local newspaper after high school classes, bugging the staff I’m sure! Likely out of frustration they began to give me assignments. The mundane stuff at first, various local events and gatherings. They called the congratulatory ceremonies “grip-n-grin” events. By the time I’d graduated from high school, my by-line had appeared under many published shots of sports events in the area, auto accidents, anything worth the ink. And I was being paid for the effort.
Now you ask, just what has this to do with our beloved LBC’s? Well, a parallel interest of mine was automobiles, specifically ones of the British performance type. All through my young life, adult friends of the parents and relatives had MG’s, Jaguars and Triumphs. And AutoWeek, then called “Competition Press & Autoweek” would arrive in the mailbox, it was the only way to keep up on Formula-1 and various other European events. A clincher was the opportune offer of a ride as a fourteen-year-old, in a Lotus Elan. On that ride the owner trolled a Corvette into a straight-line DRAG RACE! When that Lotus absolutely sprang away from a dead stop and the Corvette driver was left sitting in a cloud of rubber smoke behind us, it was obvious I would have to have one of these cars. It took a few years and on entering my freshman year of college I couldn’t yet afford a Lotus, but a two year old MGB roadster was attainable. I could afford the car but keeping it running meant I had to learn to fix it myself. The first encounter with S.U. carbs was enlightening. A Bentley’s Factory Workshop Manual was acquired before the car’s purchase, so some of the procedures to tune and sync them were at least partially understood. Over the next couple years, hanging out at the local BMC dealership, I became a “regular” to the point where the owner’s sons would show me more in detail how to keep the B running well.
Two years of college, signed up as a Photography and Commercial Art student, it got boring with classes in remedial math, English and history. I’d been the yearbook photo editor and because I’d been working part-time as a school kids’ photog with a local studio, I took all the “head shots” for the college yearbook as well. After the second year I decided to join the Air Force, do my best to become a photographer in the service. With a folder full of letters of recommendation from employers and clients, in late August of 1970 in Basic Training, I was able to take what they called a “Bypass Specialist Test.” It consisted largely of what my mentor the neighbor insisted I learn as a teen, the “nuts ‘n bolts” of the craft. At the end of Basic, while all the other new Airmen were given orders for various Tech schools, mine was a “Direct Duty Assignment.” I was given two weeks’ leave and orders to report to “Detachment 10, 1365th Photo Squadron” at Langley, Virginia. In the two weeks’ leave, I married my college girlfriend, changed the clutch in the MG and plotted various routes from the home in western Pennsylvania to Langley, Virginia. The trip was made solo in the MG on secondary roads, a scenic trip in October. The car went flawlessly, my career as an Air Force Photographer was begun. Over the next three years, my wife and self lived in a rented concrete block garage, converted to a rental dwelling. Quite comfy for us and only a couple blocks inland from the Chesapeake Bay’s Buckroe Beach, on Buckroe Avenue in Hampton, Virginia. My new wife needed a car if she was to get a job so we went on a hunt, found an MGB-GT we could afford. A red 1967, and in beautiful condition. She attained a job as a bank teller near-by, we were quite content. Early into the second year there a fellow airman, knowing we were MG enthusiasts, told us of a ‘67 B roadster he knew of for sale. We decided to “just have a look” at it, but on seeing and driving it that changed. With three of the examples we would not lack for work transportation if one of the cars would develop issues, and parts were all in common! At least that was the justification.
As we were muddling through our early twenties, happy as Chesapeake clams, an opportunity came up to possibly acquire a Lotus Elan. A civilian friend who owned an Elan Coupe had been told of one sitting on the lot of the local Chevy dealership in Newport News. We went to hunt it down in another pal’s 1965 Valiant so as to appear less sportscar savvy, possibly get a bargain. Whether that played into it or not we got the Elan, and for less than we’d spent to gain that third MGB. Now it was four Brit sportscars parked beside our little home, that was a dilemma. Affording all the attendant fees and such, it became apparent one of them had to go. We sold the third MG to a fellow airman and I became intimately familiar with the Elan and its workings. My “Permanent Change of Station” orders came at the end of March in 1973, near the beginning of my last year of enlistment. Now we were faced with some decisions, chief among them the three remaining LBC’s. In a conversation with my Valiant driving friend and fellow photog who’d left the service and gone to his home in Maine a few months before, I told him we would need to sell the GT and would keep my original MGB and the Elan. He said without hesitation his friend there in Maine would buy the GT. And as I had a month’s leave we could drive it and the Elan from Pittsburgh and spend some time visiting and relaxing there. But it was not to be.
At age seventeen, an aspirant Lotus owner
(note the reverent space between hand and car)
Took another five years before I found the Elan, in Virginia.
On the way to Maine, at eleven in the evening on the Massachusetts Turnpike near West Springfield, I glanced in the mirror to see the headlights of the MG dive as if on hard braking and the car decelerate and pull to the side. With some rapid pedal stabbing in the Lotus, I reversed to the front of the car to see my wife grasping the wheel in a death-grip, eyes wide as saucers, the smell of hot oil was in the air. She rolled the window down and said she had no idea what happened, had checked the gauges just seconds before and all was good. She said she’d then heard a loud BANG! and the rear locked up. She immediately got her foot in the clutch and braked to a stop without losing control. On lifting the bonnet and with flashlight in-hand, I could see the oil pump pickup through a hole in the side of the block! First thought was that our friends are not going to want this car. Soon a Mass State Trooper pulled up behind us, we explained our dilemma. He paced off the skid marks and remarked that he was amazed my wife could have reacted as she did and not gone into the Armco. From initial lock-up to where the car sat was an approximate three hundred feet. Quick reactions!
We drove the Elan to check in to a nearby motel and called Maine to relate the tale. My friend said he and the prospective buyer would hitch up a trailer and drive the distance to fetch the GT to Maine! Meanwhile, after a night’s restless sleep we went to the local BMC dealership and asked if they might have an engine or short block they would part with. Service manager said he had a used engine, we put the price of it on plastic. A problem was that our friends wouldn’t arrive to make the pickup until well after the dealership closed. Manager said he’d leave it outside the back fence. When the friends arrived we first got the GT off the Turnpike and went to the dealership where we found the engine, unceremoniously dumped over the four foot fence into the dirt! We loaded it onto the trailer securely and set off for Maine. As we traveled onto the Turnpike we came up on a trailer with what looked like a Formula-V racer aboard, one taillight out and no tag light. The rig was exiting at a Howard Johnson’s and we followed them in. It was Howdy Holmes! On his way to Lime Rock. We volunteered to “sandwich” him between the Elan and the truck and trailer with the GT until he pulled off the Turnpike, we had coffee and some conversation then off in a “caravan.” Oddly, none of us ever ran into Howdy again.
One of the shrapnel pieces from the GT engine
Arrival in Maine and we began the parts run for an engine rebuild of the GT. My friend and his family had a good facility, they ran a marina on a large lake, so a shop was available and we had all known one another for a few years. His dad observed as I made one engine out of two, at completion he declared: “You can work for me any time!” Over the coming years and on more than one occasion that would happen. Good friends are for a lifetime. The GT was saved, I had a working vacation.
I was being assigned to the 601st Photo Squadron, in Thailand, to report in early May. At this point I had submitted a portfolio for consideration to gain a seat at Syracuse University, one of two in contention. Submissions were accepted from anyone in the Air Force, regardless of current job classification. I was chosen as the “first runner up,” only found this out near the end of my year in Thailand. Whether it was politics or an incentive for me to re-enlist, I know not. I declined the offer of a Staff Sergeant’s stripe and the “there’s always next year” re-up speech, telling them there was a Pulitzer out there in The World someplace and I’d go hunting for it. Never caught it though.
Going back to Pennsylvania, I did a short run with a local photo studio, left over money issues and was offered a position as a salesweasel at the local Alfa Romeo, Lotus and AMC dealership in mid-1976. Owner said: “You’re here all the time anyway, why not come sell cars with us?” My transition to juxtaposing profession and hobby was underway. I did retain my active membership in “The Professional Photographers of America” for many years afterward, had some good assignments from their Directory sporadically and did some “bride chasing” on occasion. But the lure of the car business and involvement in a couple racing efforts had hooked me. Toward the end of that year the dealership’s owner partnered with a man who would bring Porsche-Audi into the dealership and remove Lotus and AMC from the lineup. I purchased what inventory there was for Lotus cars from the parts department and left the dealership on good terms.
Due to an unexpected medical problem with my spouse, expenses became an issue. She and I parted under amiable conditions, still in regular contact to this day. I took a job in a local steel mill as a Non-Destructive Test Inspector, did shift work and paid off the debt by mid-1978. During that time I had kept my hand in by working with various racing efforts, some of which were part of the dealership. Went back to the shop and suggested to the service manager they needed another “wrench” in the shop. He said: “Who, you?” I answered yes and he simply said: “You’re hired!” During the next year I got my ASE Certifications and Porsche-Audi certs by attending the Lanham, MD. Training facility. I’d met Mitsy by this time, she had just come home from a six month visit in Europe, staying with relatives and touring the various museums. We’d much in common, her time spent in Europe was just after she’d graduated from The Art Institute of Pittsburgh. And she owned an MGB roadster! Life was good, except for the western Pennsylvania winters. After the one in 1978 we determined the best thing we could do would be move to Florida, it took the next three years to build up both the funds and courage to do just that.
In those intervening three years I had bought a lovely 1969 Alfa Romeo GTV, then found a Lotus Elan+2 in a repair shop, the car’s owner couldn’t pay the engine repair estimate for it and he needed a car. As a trade for my GTV, he handed over the Lotus with engine still assembled and a spare transmission, along with a sum of cash. We rebuilt that engine and got the car running over the next winter. As this was going on one of the dealership owners offered me a chance to buy his MK-I Lotus Cortina at an unusually low price, with the caveat that I’d have to make it run and drive it off his property. He’d tried to get it running himself and was stymied. We went to look and determined it only needed spark to run. Out with the dizzy, Mitsy’s emery board for a points cleaner, static timed it and it lit right off. The owner said; “I just KNEW you were gonna do that!” Then it was three Lotus cars in a two-stall garage! We moved all to Florida in 1981, I found work in a local shop specializing in British cars and later teamed with my now former partner who is still a good friend, he and I spent a couple decades servicing and restoring British and European classics and never looked back. In pursuit of happiness, I also found contentment.
by DrEntropy
As a young person, my interest in all things mechanical was only overshadowed by a fascination with the photographic image. The ability to “steal a moment in time” with a camera. It started with my paternal grandfather’s photos of his various trips around the continent, taken with a 35mm Baldina camera and Kodachrome. The man had an “eye,” likely due to having been a National Geographic life member from the time of his youth. As a pre-teen, the images of Cypress Gardens water skiing exhibitions, Anasazi cliff dwellings, Canadian flower gardens, the Grand Canyon, all projected onto a large screen in his living room post-trip held me spellbound. I had to learn to do that!
The parents were fairly indulgent, they would encourage the curiosity. My younger brother and I received box cameras as Christmas gifts when I was eleven and soon dad became tired of dropping off and retrieving our developed black-and-white film. He got me a Kodak developing tank and kit of chemistry. It took many tries and much light struck film before there were any successful attempts at processing. The printing consisted of “Daylight Printing Paper” as contact prints only, but that set me on a path to a life as a photographer. And it was my good fortune to have a neighbor who was a second generation pro, his studio and darkroom were two streets away, at our summer home on Lake Erie. He had kids about the same age as my brother and I so we hung out together a lot in the season. His kids had no interest in photography but he saw my eagerness to learn and so mentored me, truly taught me the craft. By the time I was fourteen we had built a darkroom in the garage in western Pennsylvania, stealing a twelve by six foot piece of dad’s real estate.
On acquiring a drivers license a few years later I began the pursuit in earnest, hanging around the photo department of the local newspaper after high school classes, bugging the staff I’m sure! Likely out of frustration they began to give me assignments. The mundane stuff at first, various local events and gatherings. They called the congratulatory ceremonies “grip-n-grin” events. By the time I’d graduated from high school, my by-line had appeared under many published shots of sports events in the area, auto accidents, anything worth the ink. And I was being paid for the effort.
Now you ask, just what has this to do with our beloved LBC’s? Well, a parallel interest of mine was automobiles, specifically ones of the British performance type. All through my young life, adult friends of the parents and relatives had MG’s, Jaguars and Triumphs. And AutoWeek, then called “Competition Press & Autoweek” would arrive in the mailbox, it was the only way to keep up on Formula-1 and various other European events. A clincher was the opportune offer of a ride as a fourteen-year-old, in a Lotus Elan. On that ride the owner trolled a Corvette into a straight-line DRAG RACE! When that Lotus absolutely sprang away from a dead stop and the Corvette driver was left sitting in a cloud of rubber smoke behind us, it was obvious I would have to have one of these cars. It took a few years and on entering my freshman year of college I couldn’t yet afford a Lotus, but a two year old MGB roadster was attainable. I could afford the car but keeping it running meant I had to learn to fix it myself. The first encounter with S.U. carbs was enlightening. A Bentley’s Factory Workshop Manual was acquired before the car’s purchase, so some of the procedures to tune and sync them were at least partially understood. Over the next couple years, hanging out at the local BMC dealership, I became a “regular” to the point where the owner’s sons would show me more in detail how to keep the B running well.
Two years of college, signed up as a Photography and Commercial Art student, it got boring with classes in remedial math, English and history. I’d been the yearbook photo editor and because I’d been working part-time as a school kids’ photog with a local studio, I took all the “head shots” for the college yearbook as well. After the second year I decided to join the Air Force, do my best to become a photographer in the service. With a folder full of letters of recommendation from employers and clients, in late August of 1970 in Basic Training, I was able to take what they called a “Bypass Specialist Test.” It consisted largely of what my mentor the neighbor insisted I learn as a teen, the “nuts ‘n bolts” of the craft. At the end of Basic, while all the other new Airmen were given orders for various Tech schools, mine was a “Direct Duty Assignment.” I was given two weeks’ leave and orders to report to “Detachment 10, 1365th Photo Squadron” at Langley, Virginia. In the two weeks’ leave, I married my college girlfriend, changed the clutch in the MG and plotted various routes from the home in western Pennsylvania to Langley, Virginia. The trip was made solo in the MG on secondary roads, a scenic trip in October. The car went flawlessly, my career as an Air Force Photographer was begun. Over the next three years, my wife and self lived in a rented concrete block garage, converted to a rental dwelling. Quite comfy for us and only a couple blocks inland from the Chesapeake Bay’s Buckroe Beach, on Buckroe Avenue in Hampton, Virginia. My new wife needed a car if she was to get a job so we went on a hunt, found an MGB-GT we could afford. A red 1967, and in beautiful condition. She attained a job as a bank teller near-by, we were quite content. Early into the second year there a fellow airman, knowing we were MG enthusiasts, told us of a ‘67 B roadster he knew of for sale. We decided to “just have a look” at it, but on seeing and driving it that changed. With three of the examples we would not lack for work transportation if one of the cars would develop issues, and parts were all in common! At least that was the justification.
At age seventeen, an aspirant Lotus owner
(note the reverent space between hand and car)
Took another five years before I found the Elan, in Virginia.
On the way to Maine, at eleven in the evening on the Massachusetts Turnpike near West Springfield, I glanced in the mirror to see the headlights of the MG dive as if on hard braking and the car decelerate and pull to the side. With some rapid pedal stabbing in the Lotus, I reversed to the front of the car to see my wife grasping the wheel in a death-grip, eyes wide as saucers, the smell of hot oil was in the air. She rolled the window down and said she had no idea what happened, had checked the gauges just seconds before and all was good. She said she’d then heard a loud BANG! and the rear locked up. She immediately got her foot in the clutch and braked to a stop without losing control. On lifting the bonnet and with flashlight in-hand, I could see the oil pump pickup through a hole in the side of the block! First thought was that our friends are not going to want this car. Soon a Mass State Trooper pulled up behind us, we explained our dilemma. He paced off the skid marks and remarked that he was amazed my wife could have reacted as she did and not gone into the Armco. From initial lock-up to where the car sat was an approximate three hundred feet. Quick reactions!
We drove the Elan to check in to a nearby motel and called Maine to relate the tale. My friend said he and the prospective buyer would hitch up a trailer and drive the distance to fetch the GT to Maine! Meanwhile, after a night’s restless sleep we went to the local BMC dealership and asked if they might have an engine or short block they would part with. Service manager said he had a used engine, we put the price of it on plastic. A problem was that our friends wouldn’t arrive to make the pickup until well after the dealership closed. Manager said he’d leave it outside the back fence. When the friends arrived we first got the GT off the Turnpike and went to the dealership where we found the engine, unceremoniously dumped over the four foot fence into the dirt! We loaded it onto the trailer securely and set off for Maine. As we traveled onto the Turnpike we came up on a trailer with what looked like a Formula-V racer aboard, one taillight out and no tag light. The rig was exiting at a Howard Johnson’s and we followed them in. It was Howdy Holmes! On his way to Lime Rock. We volunteered to “sandwich” him between the Elan and the truck and trailer with the GT until he pulled off the Turnpike, we had coffee and some conversation then off in a “caravan.” Oddly, none of us ever ran into Howdy again.
One of the shrapnel pieces from the GT engine
Arrival in Maine and we began the parts run for an engine rebuild of the GT. My friend and his family had a good facility, they ran a marina on a large lake, so a shop was available and we had all known one another for a few years. His dad observed as I made one engine out of two, at completion he declared: “You can work for me any time!” Over the coming years and on more than one occasion that would happen. Good friends are for a lifetime. The GT was saved, I had a working vacation.
I was being assigned to the 601st Photo Squadron, in Thailand, to report in early May. At this point I had submitted a portfolio for consideration to gain a seat at Syracuse University, one of two in contention. Submissions were accepted from anyone in the Air Force, regardless of current job classification. I was chosen as the “first runner up,” only found this out near the end of my year in Thailand. Whether it was politics or an incentive for me to re-enlist, I know not. I declined the offer of a Staff Sergeant’s stripe and the “there’s always next year” re-up speech, telling them there was a Pulitzer out there in The World someplace and I’d go hunting for it. Never caught it though.
Going back to Pennsylvania, I did a short run with a local photo studio, left over money issues and was offered a position as a salesweasel at the local Alfa Romeo, Lotus and AMC dealership in mid-1976. Owner said: “You’re here all the time anyway, why not come sell cars with us?” My transition to juxtaposing profession and hobby was underway. I did retain my active membership in “The Professional Photographers of America” for many years afterward, had some good assignments from their Directory sporadically and did some “bride chasing” on occasion. But the lure of the car business and involvement in a couple racing efforts had hooked me. Toward the end of that year the dealership’s owner partnered with a man who would bring Porsche-Audi into the dealership and remove Lotus and AMC from the lineup. I purchased what inventory there was for Lotus cars from the parts department and left the dealership on good terms.
Due to an unexpected medical problem with my spouse, expenses became an issue. She and I parted under amiable conditions, still in regular contact to this day. I took a job in a local steel mill as a Non-Destructive Test Inspector, did shift work and paid off the debt by mid-1978. During that time I had kept my hand in by working with various racing efforts, some of which were part of the dealership. Went back to the shop and suggested to the service manager they needed another “wrench” in the shop. He said: “Who, you?” I answered yes and he simply said: “You’re hired!” During the next year I got my ASE Certifications and Porsche-Audi certs by attending the Lanham, MD. Training facility. I’d met Mitsy by this time, she had just come home from a six month visit in Europe, staying with relatives and touring the various museums. We’d much in common, her time spent in Europe was just after she’d graduated from The Art Institute of Pittsburgh. And she owned an MGB roadster! Life was good, except for the western Pennsylvania winters. After the one in 1978 we determined the best thing we could do would be move to Florida, it took the next three years to build up both the funds and courage to do just that.
In those intervening three years I had bought a lovely 1969 Alfa Romeo GTV, then found a Lotus Elan+2 in a repair shop, the car’s owner couldn’t pay the engine repair estimate for it and he needed a car. As a trade for my GTV, he handed over the Lotus with engine still assembled and a spare transmission, along with a sum of cash. We rebuilt that engine and got the car running over the next winter. As this was going on one of the dealership owners offered me a chance to buy his MK-I Lotus Cortina at an unusually low price, with the caveat that I’d have to make it run and drive it off his property. He’d tried to get it running himself and was stymied. We went to look and determined it only needed spark to run. Out with the dizzy, Mitsy’s emery board for a points cleaner, static timed it and it lit right off. The owner said; “I just KNEW you were gonna do that!” Then it was three Lotus cars in a two-stall garage! We moved all to Florida in 1981, I found work in a local shop specializing in British cars and later teamed with my now former partner who is still a good friend, he and I spent a couple decades servicing and restoring British and European classics and never looked back. In pursuit of happiness, I also found contentment.
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