Finding Romance
By: Matt Ryan
I’m so lucky I married a
woman that loves to take long walks on the beach. Yet, she still doesn’t
mind when I manage to find car parts along the way. Not just car parts…
complete engines! This month we took a trip to the coast. We went to
Mendocino and Fort Bragg stopping along the way to visit various beaches.
Kevin and Alicia joined us. One might think the highlight of our getaway
might be the beautiful weather, empty beaches, whale sightings, or scenic
roads. The girls might say the highlight was the cute shops and towns, or
pretty rocks and pieces of glass from Glass Beach. I say nay. We found
something way better.
We were the only people at Greenwood State Beach. We took a
peaceful stroll along the beach in the warm spring sun. The surf was
washing up close to our feet as we held hands. The Ocean breeze blew in
with each crashing wave. It was crisp, salty, fresh air. Just when I
couldn’t possible be any more bored… we stumbled across an engine in
the sand. It was a V8 Ford Flathead! “Quick, get out the camera, this is
a photo opportunity,” I exclaimed. As if the engine that was rusted half
way through from the Ocean water was actually going anywhere. After
countless pictures from every angle of an engine that the ocean
had turned
into a boat anchor, we continued down the beach.
One hundred yards further, we stopped at the end of the beach by some boulders. The waves were crashing down on them and something caught my eye. I went down to the water’s edge and couldn’t believe my eyes. “Honey, we need this in our yard,” I pleaded. She couldn’t understand what was so special about a large rock. What she didn’t know was that I spotted a tiny bit of copper sticking out of this rock. The copper was actually a piece of field winding on a Model T magneto. And the rock was not a rock at all. It was an entire Model T engine, only distinguishable by the copper field winding, one transmission band, and its shape and size. Anyone else would stare right at it and swear that this fossilized engine was a rock. The iron was embedded with polished rock to make a perfectly smooth surface all around. This crustacean of an engine had gone through the world’s largest rock tumbler.
It was a great find. As we walked away I couldn’t help but think about the last time and the next time anyone would recognize the engine that once rolled through the plant in Detroit and chugged along the rutted roads nearly 100 years ago.
