I remember way back in my younger years me and several of my buddies were riding to roads looking for lost deer hounds from the day before. We were riding in a 1947 dodge, and it was about 6 of us drunk fools plus the old guy driving packed in that old car. The guy driving said, okay boys time to pony up we need gas. He had a small green sign on the dashboard that read....Ass, gas, or grass nobody rides for free, so he had everyone digging in their pockets for spare change. I think I had something like a buck fifty to throw in and after the collecting was over, we had enough to get a couple more 6 packs and $2.50 in gas. He had parked the old Dodge next to the gas pump and we left this one guy out there to pump the gas. Well, we loaded back up and started back down the road and after about a mile or so the old Dodge started to bucking and shaking with a little smoke coming out the tail pipe and finally, he pulled over to see what was going on. I noticed a slight bit of diesel smell in the air but kept it to myself and we headed back down the road. We rode every back road in Chesterfield County before the day was out and we finally made it back to the club house. Before we got there we had to stop off at of the guy's house so he could go in to raid his wife's cookie jar for some more beer money. We barely got halfway out of the driveway before she came out of the house a screaming and yelling, and I thought we were all goners for sure because everybody knew she always kept an ol' 12 ga single barrel right by the door loaded with # 4 buckshot, but our faithful driver got on the gas and screamed out the driveway in a trail of smoke and diesel fuel fumes.
By the time we hit the beer store and got back to the hunt Shak the old Dodge had calmed down and was running a little better, it still smoked a little with minor diesel fumes coming out the tailpipe, but all in all we got there in one piece. We were sitting around by the fire talking about the day's deeds when soon the topic of what in the world had happened to the old Dodge and everybody had their opinions and offered up their suggestions on how to come up with a fix. One guy got out a matchbook and commenced to filing down the points. Someone else said it's the dang condenser for sure. one guy yelled out it probably just needs a fuel filter. When he said fuel filter a light bulb went on in my head and I looked over at the guy that was in charge of gas pump, and I asked him which one of those pumps did you use to put gas in the car. He yelled out, well the cheapest one I could find you know we didn't have much money to put in the tank so being the cheap scape that I am I went the economy route. I softly asked him just how much was that gas? He said it was a real good price just .12 cents a gal. Now I never claimed to be the best at reading or math by any stretch of the imagination, but I do remember the sign at the gas station saying Reg .22 cents mid grade .26 cents and hy test .34 cents a gallon and down below that it said road diesel .17 cents and off-road diesel .12 cents a gallon. Well that about took care of the big mystery and we rode that poor boy like a mule for the next 20 years. It's a good thing we didn't have room in that old car to carry much of anything except bodies and beer because if there had been a shot gun in there somewhere it may have been used in the wrong way. That old guy thought the world of that old Dodge and to do any harm to the ol girl meant trouble for somebody. He got over it in a few days after we dumped about $3.00 worth of hy test in the tank and the ol girl ran better that it did when it was brand new.
