Jason and his Grandmother, parts 3168 - 3171

 3168. Jason was not dumb, he wasn’t a complete imbecile. He knew a lot of things I  knew nothing about. He was a walking dictionary of automobile facts. He was a traveling encyclopedia of trivia about cars. But he was not in any way interested in anything else. Jason lived and breathed , dreamed and talked about cars, and the entire time of our friendship we never talked about anything else.

 3169. But that is not accurate, Jason talked, and I  listened to him. It was a one-sided conversation, and a lopsided friendship. We walked together to school in the morning, home for lunch, back to school after lunch and then home again in the evening and all the time Jason talked about cars. Even on Saturday when we would go downtown, or walk the railroad tracks, he would keep up his monologue about cars. 

 3170. It was not a passive interest that Jason had, but a passionate involvement.  He loved certain cars and hated others with a fury.  His most profound admiration however was reserved for a certain object called a customized car. He has a stack of magazines in his bedroom devoted to hot rods, and customized cars.

 3171. These cars had their own special language , they were chopped and channeled, they were frenched.  They had special carburetors, and differentials, with coded names and numbers. Jason’s endless lecture about cars, which could go on for hours, was fueled by the passing traffic. He could identify cars, and their engine types, simply by their sounds.