Speck Rowe was Allen and Wills grandfather. He was Pater Familias, the chief sage of not only the Rowe house that stood on the corner of Fayetteville Avenue and Parsonage Street but for anyone that had ever crossed paths with him. Speck was the Fixed Base Operator of the Marlboro County Airport, known as HE Avant Jetport now and with him serving in that role it exposed all us boys to not only airplanes but go-karts, minibikes and a great multitude of various powered and non-powered pursuits. Speck had something he mumbled when watching us learn how to twist a screwdriver or remove a bolt and it was etched into his vocabulary, and when we heard it we knew the sentiment.
Allen and I were focused on our second attempt at setting a land speed record of any sort, and our previous attempts had fallen far short of our goals. After spending most of a Friday night and half of a Saturday engineering and building a go-kart with which we intended to set a gravity-powered record on the contraption fell apart on it's factory acceptance test on the hill behind the Bennettsville Fire Department. The left front wheel escaped the axle and shot off into the Kudzu vine growing in the clay along the road that was graded and paved in an effort to allow the firemen easy access to all points of the compass and the axle dug into the still-soft asphalt, pivoting the kart wildly counterclockwise while gouging a furrow in the roadway and slinging not only the occupant but all the components in a three-hundred and sixty degree arc. Undaunted, we would gather the parts, reassemble the kart and repeat the feat until we suffered a loss of too many vital components that resulted in our defeated trudge back to 105 S Cook Street, towing the sad yet salvageable remains behind us in a mix of pride and humility.
This time was to be different, because we were tensioning the chain on a 1950s vintage Simplex minibike with a bright-white Clinton 3 hp motor that had the curious rope starter that whipped off the starting pulley...a dangerous eight inches of calf-biting stamped steel revolving at 1800 rpm a mere two inches from your left ankle...and slapped you in the chest when the motor coughed to life before the rope had fully unwound off the pulley. We were snatching, grabbing, bending and twisting everything that could be snatched, grabbed, bent and twisted while Speck watched and mumbled the same four words over and over. He punctuated the echoing quartet of words with a shaking head and a visage of amusement. I caught his glance and immediately the shame of guilt came over me. Previously in the day I had overheard Mr Bill laughing about his daddys pet peeve, which was inept people that stab in the dark for the solution and end up snatching, grabbing, bending and twisting everything but the solution...and sadly, look good in the process in their own eyes.
As hurt as I may have been then, I totally understand the sentiment today. Speck, you were indeed the philosopher of the day, and your memory lives on forever. We drained every gas pump at that airport riding that minibike. Thank you, and have a Rice Day!