HA! I thought i was alone in that. I've got "Jovies" that come by regularly and always seem interested in what i'm doing on my cars. Handing out the "Awake" magazine and reading the bible passages is always like an afterthought. I used to always try to avoid them but now the one guy is quite tolerable. No other real problems, i try to limit the open header stuff and testing the line lock or launching in the driveway.
I try to avoid my neighbours generally, except the guy across the street and his wife are pretty cool. He has a 63 Phoenix, a nice sounding late Fairlane, a 49 F1 and a 40 or so coupe. A few years ago I was building a 34 Plymouth roadster pickup with a 302 Windsor. I started it up one time without any exhaust and the old dude next door yelled out "hey, when are you going to put a muffler on that thing". Don't have the rpu now but my 54 Dodge has split pipes and no mufflers. And my ski boat has a 330hp SBC with straight out pipes - loud as. And my wagon has a GEN3 with a nice sounding system. And my mates come over with their cars. I bet it shits him to tears when we start one of these babys up.
The guy next door is abourt ready to loose his house and it has me worried about who will be moving in after it sits empty for a year or so while his bank trys to sell it,it looks like I will now have to pay someone to fix my computer when he goes.
Yeah I had a few of those...The wife doesn't find it very funny when I have them changing oil in a bikini top.
I'm the only home owner on my block, one rundown vacant house next door, and 3 single family rental homes on the otherside. All my neighbors are STONERS but at least they arn't into drugs!!. lol it is a quiet area but neighbors are always moving in and out...I just watch them come and go!
my neighbors are more curious about what I've got done since their last visits to my garage. I always offer them a beer and conversation so that I can control it to keep it brief and they usually respect me and know its time for them to go when I put down the beer, climb off the barstool, and fire up the grinder and say..."its time to go back to it"...and they leave right on cue. and of course they all wanna go for a ride or be there when I fire up the motor for the first time...I told them the mufflers wont be connected, but they said as long as its during the day and not at night that would be cool with them..I might surprise them...once or twice. Overall, I'd say I couldnt ask for better.
My neighbor is on disability from a racing accident. Cool old guy. Comes over every once and a while to shoot the shit. Never stays long though. Best kind of neighbor.
One neighbor is from another country and thinks of what we do as play with the toy cars, well this will piss off just about any of us. The other neighbor is a tech nerd and likes to borrow my tools. Funny how a guy who works on computer equipment that costs in the tens of millions of dollars can disrespect a sawzall or a paint sprayer in ways that make you wonder just how the hell he melted them, and where did the power cord go? I got into this nice habit of looking straight ahead and not making eye contact, it's a lot cheaper this way. Each side has told my wife that I'm not such a friendly type. One asks why do I waste my time working on shitty old cars the other destroys my tools and even asks my wife to borrow stuff and says I pre approved. At least he does return the tools or at least most of the components of them. Hmmm. Yes there must be something wrong with me, anyone else would be totally insane by now.
I have nice neighbors no car guys but the best thing is I live out in the middle of nowhere on acerage no body bothers me . Mark
I must have great neighbors, the cops left us alone when we a party for the son when he got back from Iraq. We had close to 200 people at out house & cars parked for blocks on each side of the street. The son did a burn out in the driveway at 10am that made it look like the house was on fire. We had people come out of their houses & drive down the street to see WTF was going on. Now the cops did show up once, but I think it had to do w/the $3000 worth of fireworks we were working on that night. Had people pullingover on I-255 watching the show. I guess someone was impressed, jealous or pissed. I was just happy I knew the cop....joe
The Jalopy Journal
