The Mechanical Wizards of Cambridge

Thinking someone with a formal college degree is somehow superior to a person who can build and tune a high performance engine is a great example of pure ignorance. The same can be said for failing to appreciate the rare individual who makes something out of almost nothing through the power of creative engineering. Although many mechanics do possess formal degrees, they all studied at the College of Experience, their diplomas awarded in steel and aluminum. Fortunately, in spite of cultural and class prejudice, Cambridge has been blessed with a well above average supply of truly gifted wrench wizards, many also talented controllers of the machines they put together. Most seriously, if we study American history carefully, we’ll see it’s people like these who greatly helped build our country into the powerhouse it became.

As far as first person stories go, one of the best examples of exceptional skill is a man I know the least of those I’ll mention, and that’s Don Schneider, but leaving Don out of any discussion of mechanical relevance in Cambridge would be like failing to mention Albert Einstein in a study of mathematics. Don, Class of 64, is extremely gifted as both a mechanic and driver. His brother Paul told me recently Don actually instructed professional race drivers. All I know firsthand is Don gave me an unforgettable thrill in his race-tuned Corvair Corsa in 1971 that to this day remains the ride of my life. Equally terrified and enchanted, I knew, even as a stupid 17-year old, I’d have a great story to tell in my old age, if I ever got there.

I’d never been in a vehicle that did a four-wheel controlled drift until Don took me around the sharp corner going out of Coila at something like 90 mph. I didn’t recognize the highly skilled maneuver for what it was, expecting at any second I was about to die in the hands of a madman, but in reality Don had absolute control of the vehicle. What I experienced was poetry in motion, man and his machine in total harmony. It took me years and numerous hospital visits to finally figure out I could never come close to Don’s abilities. I’m alive today only due to finally internalizing Clint Eastwood’s classic line, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

On the other end of the familiarity spectrum with great Cambridge gear heads is my brother Pat, Class of 74, also a professional mechanic for many years, and an extremely talented driver.

I can document Pat’s driving skills several ways. One is that as a teenager Pat racked up so many speeding tickets the good folks down at Jerome E. Wright Insurance explained to him that if he got just one more only Lloyd’s of London would consider insuring any vehicle he drove, and then he’d better strike oil to pay the premium, and this oil did not include the oil on his hands from trying to see how fast he could make his hotrod Roadrunner go. Unlike brother Mike, who also collected tickets like baseball cards, Pat never had an accident, even at the speeds he often liked to drive, where yours truly had so many he’s not sure the exact number today, brain damage being funny that way.

For further evidence, a few years after Don’s ride my brother and I sat on the back porch swapping stories. I retold Don’s epic demonstration.

“I can do that,” younger brother said, which older brother foolishly questioned. We then hopped into the Roadrunner where Pat demonstrated, three different times by my count, his mastery of the four-wheel drift he executed at speeds I don’t remember because I was too afraid to look at the speedometer.

As far as mastery of any machine goes, Pat’s classmate Don Sweet’s exploits on a motorcycle may be the best known as Don rode professionally for a number of years and was rated near the top of the nation for what’s known as trials riding, a sport that requires almost unworldly ability at balance and other aspects of motorcycle control I know nothing about because I never had any.

Although I never had the opportunity to see Don compete, he put on a most telling demonstration in our backyard one warm Saturday afternoon.

Don rode in on his motorcycle, hoping brother Pat would join him for a ride, but Pat wasn’t home. Don and I proceeded to have a very nice conversation over several minutes. I remember this vividly today because Don stood on the seat of his motorcycle as we talked, Don making it look like the motorcycle was bolted into the ground like a piece of playground equipment, but in reality off the side stand on two free rolling wheels. The bike never moved that I could detect, and Don could maintain the balance for as long as he wished. After our conversation, Don just jumped a bit, dropping to the ground to straddle the bike, which still never moved that I could see, until Don kicked it over and rode off with a wave while I stood almost frozen in awe.

It was also brother Pat who introduced me to one of the greatest survival mechanics I’ve ever known, and I’ve been blessed to know quite a few good ones. For a good number of years Jeff Piekarz, Class of 75, kept a lot of broke young guys on the road because he was able to fix the unfixable wrecks many of us owned at the time. Jeff was the absolute master of low buck repair and helped a lot of people get to work or school. In spite of our almost total lack of resources, new parts generally unavailable to the impoverished, Jeff always found ways of adapting all sorts of junk into serviceable replacements that might not work quite as well as the original, but doggone it, we were back on the highway at minimal expense. Two wheels or four, if Jeff couldn’t make it go, it was time to strip the carcass for parts.

Jeff liked to joke about his world famous “taillight guarantee” which meant once he saw our taillights the deep discount poverty jobs he often did as favors were not guaranteed, but more times than not the fix worked, and when it didn’t, Jeff nearly always found some alternative that did. Jeff was an artisan in rusted metal and burnt rubber, innovative as much as he was intuitive, an excellent trouble shooter and composer of mechanical motion. Jeff’s brother once told me that everyone in the Piekarz family played a musical instrument except Jeff, and then said, “Jeff plays the wrench.” He did indeed.

Most folks probably remember the late George Bell, Class of 72, more for his work in law enforcement as Cambridge Chief of Police, but George originally planned on a career in auto mechanics, working after school just about every day right across the street at Albee Messina’s garage. Like Jeff, many, many times, George kept me from walking when my budget dictated otherwise.

Most memorable were George’s three discount brake jobs, discount being free, except for the cost of the brake fluid. These sorts of “repairs” were necessitated by my first car, a 1963 Corvair Monza I purchased from classmate Randy Dyke before I figured out that when Randy was finished with any car the vehicle was truly done as well. The learning came slow as I also swapped Randy later for a 1966 Mustang with a broken motor mount. When I stepped on the gas, the stick shift moved about a foot to the right, but Randy showed me how to compensate.

As for George and the Corvair, the former was a good friend and the latter nothing but a brown heap of rusting metal. The undercarriage was so corroded it had big holes in the floorboards, one right below my feet. In snowy and slushy weather, the road accumulation would actually push up the tattered rubber floor mat so much I had to stomp the mound down some to operate the gas pedal.

One day I hit the brakes and received so little response I had to use the emergency brake to come to a full stop at Albee’s garage where I pleaded for George’s help. George put the piece of Chevy’s worst garbage on Albee’s lift and started to shake his head, explaining that all the brake lines needed to be replaced due to severe corrosion. “Can’t you do anything?” I begged.

Anything turned out to be cutting the leaking brake line which George then folded over and pounded closed with a ball peen hammer. Next he bled the brake system which now gave me brakes at only three wheels, more than acceptable to a guy with my standards.

The following week, George did the same on brake line two, and the next week on brake line three. I now had brakes on only the right front wheel, and a little help from the rear wheel emergency brake shoes I also employed when making a full stop. On applying the brake, the car pulled like it was chained on one side and took about two centuries to slow down, but that didn’t stop me from driving it to Hudson Falls, where the generator fell off when a rusted bracket cracked through completely. We used my belt to tie the generator back on and managed somehow to limp back to Cambridge, the final ride in my first “classic” car. It was my 18^th birthday, a crash story I’ll detail later. (Click here for link to this story)

Of all of my mechanic saviors, Jeff Babcock, Class of 73, made the greatest physical sacrifice. Jeff is also a master mechanic and grew up with a wrench in his hands, his father Tommy running his own garage for many years. It was actually hanging out with Jeff at his father’s shop when I first began to learn the basic rudiments of mechanics, for one example, why it was not a great idea to change a spark plug with a vise grips. Jeff went on to serve in the Air Force, as an aircraft mechanic, naturally, and then continued the profession after he left the service. It should go without saying, but just in case, you don’t get to twist wrenches on stuff that flies unless you’re very, very good, and Jeff was and still is that sort of professional.

Still hooked on Corvairs and completely incapable of telling a good car from a bad one, I bought one with a burnt engine. When it died completely in the middle of winter, I managed to push the hulk into our old barn that was and still is completely open on one side and came with a most convenient dirt floor that quickly swallowed any nut or bolt dropped into it. Over many years and under quite a few adverse conditions, I’ve yet to find a worse time and place to try changing out a motor, a most involved job, one way beyond my abilities at the time. Jeff volunteered to help guide the Arctic expedition and actually did most of the work while I served as his assistant and human ice sculpture.

We worked in brutally chilling conditions, the thermometer never getting above 10 degrees, so cold we had to use gloves to keep our hands from sticking to the frozen wrenches. A cold wind blew constantly through the open part of the barn. I remember Jeff combating the cold by picking up a bolt and blowing on it in his gloved hand to warm the bolt up a bit so that he could use his bare fingers for just a few seconds to get it started in a difficult to access hole, one of many common problems all mechanics cope with daily, but rarely under the conditions Jeff endured. I think we worked though the weekend switching motors, only to find the junkyard engine I picked up was even worse than the one we removed, certainly not Jeff’s fault. That’s when I traded the dead hulk to Randy for the Mustang.

You get to know who your real friends are when times are this tough, one of the finest aspects of misfortune mixed with good people. Ride on brothers and sisters and be grateful for all those who keep us in motion, especially when it’s most difficult to do.

On a final note, I apologize for not mentioning more Cambridge talent and hope someone can continue this story. For example, I recall numerous times when a frustrated mechanic decided he’d better call on higher powers, and that meant “Cowhead,” the nickname for the late Jim Dawley, but I have no personal experiences watching this particular Cambridge master mechanic perform his magic. Do you?