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"God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And Wisdom to know the difference."
/\This is one of my favorite quotes, i don't know whos it is but i have a plaque with this saying on my wall by my computer./\
When I was 5 years old my father died, and growing up not having a father to look up to I turned to family and friends as my role models. I became friends with a family that lived down the street from my grandmother and all through elementary, middle school, and high school we remained close. Today I consider them as part of my family and me as part of theirs. Anyways growing up around them I became interested in what they where doing to their cars/trucks(Jerry).If you were ever over there some part of the day had something to wotha car and there was no way you couldn't be involved in helping some way. I first started to just stand near by and watch what they did to the engines and how they put it together and basic engine functions. They noticed my interest in cars and told me I could help them by getting thier tools from to the tool box for them and in return I would learn how to work on cars, I was probably 12 or 13 at the time.Over the next few years I stood by and watched as many engines were put together, and many were either blown apart (Josh+blower=no good) or just upgraded to bigger better parts. When i was 15 I helped tear down and put back together Jerry's 81 Camaro, find out about what we did to the car, pictures, and a Bio of this vehicle by clicking on the link. This rebuild took the whole summer and I can honestly say that it was an EXPERIENCE, anything you can possibly think of was done to this car. I finally turned 16 and found the car that would be the ScreaminDeamin and couldn't wait to get started on it, but i would have to wait. Finally my sophmore summer I was able to scrape up some cash and begin the project. I'll just say that at first I just wanted to paint it, then one thing led to another and before I knew it my own mother couldn't even tell that it was the same car. As I almost completely emptied my savings account I completed the first phase of ScreaminDeamin. I coulnd't wait for the new school year to begin and I could pull through the parking lot at school and have everyone look as I drove to my parking spot. I'll just say that the feeling was as good as i thought it would be! Everyone that saw the car that first week was shocked by its glamourous good looks. If you saw me pull into that parking lot you could see a grin from ear to ear on my face! My friends thought that I had bought a new car and that there was no way that I could have done that much work to my old car. Though the car was not as fast as it looked it still turned heads and put a many Stangs to shame! I had several offers from individuals wanting to buy the car but i turned down every one of them(one guy offered me $6,000), there was no way I was going to sell or ever get rid of this car! It would be 2 years before i could get my finances together to build a motor and make it as fast as it looked. Which is a completely different story.Though I can no longer drive my first car( read my WRECK article) I feel that it made me very knowledgable and experienced at a young age.
