Captainkirk's Duster project
..."and then one day you find//Ten years have got behind you//No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun...."
Pink Floyd, "TIME", Dark Side Of The Moon
Life is cyclical, ebbing and flowing like a river. Always in motion; always changing. Sometimes we embrace the change; sometimes we resist it. Try as you might, you can't stop change. It will come whether or not you are ready (or willing) and leave you in the dust if you're not ready to climb aboard. I'm talking about life stages, not just day-to-day changes.
Why is the Captain dredging this up and waxing philosophical? Well, because I was just thinking, pondering, wondering why, exactly, I've gone so banzai on The Duke lately, after such a long hiatus as I experienced. And the answer has eluded me
until now.
See, this is not simply a change in routine; a re-kindled interest in an old hobby. Not this time. Its different, you see. This is more of a paradigm shift; a lifestyle change. Why? Well, let me tell you
.
There are those moments of clarity when something rocks the boat, makes you grip the side railings a little tighter
. And then, there are those moments when you're chucked into the icy-cold water, head-first, and emerge frigid, wet, gasping for air and in shock. The moment when you stare at your face in the mirror for more than a cursory glance while shaving and ask yourself, What the hell
?
Yep, this was one of them.
It started, I suppose, with my son Chris buying his own Duster, a 74 318-powered car, all gussied up in a glowing coat of orange enamel that looked, from a distance, shockingly similar to the Li'l Red Minx of yore
; so much that my heart skipped a beat and I did a double-take as I walked up on it. Seeing fuzzy cell phone pictures is one thing, but walking up on a blast from the past is a real slap in the face. It was like seeing the ghost of one long departed. That in itself was not the game changer; it was the talking afterward about Dusters, dredging up memories, attending a few car shows, revisiting my favorite FABO website and reading through other resto posts that caused me to venture once again out into The Duke's lair and lift, once again, the dusty blue tarp that covered him like a burial shroud.
And look; ponder
..
Not that I haven't done that before; no...
many, many times. So, why was this time different?
Because
.I realized, for the first time ever, that its time to '**** or get off the pot'. That there are only so many grains of sand left in the ol' hour glass, and that the time was NOW
do or die. (or, dare I say it
..sell?). See, this project has morphed from a "get'r-back-on-the-road-again" fling into a major undertaking. And I realized, maybe for the first time ever, that I've got to throw everything I've got into it, or it will never, ever get finished.
Now, by finished, I mean rolling, running, driveable. I realize that I will probably ALWAYS be tweaking, fiddling, re-working, improving things
. And that's OK. That's the point at which it becomes, once again, just a hobby. Right now, for me to get it where I want it, it has to, has to!
...become a lifestyle; a driving force. Otherwise, I will continue to putter as my interest waxes and wanes and competes with my other hobbies and interests. And, staring at that face in the mirror, I realize I'm not ready to walk away from The Duke. Not now. There are too many memories, too much emotional investment, blood, sweat and tears to walk away now. But if I don't dig my spurs in this horse, NOW, I'm never gonna finish the race.
So...
Giddyup!