I hope that you will bring the book to our attention when it is published?
You read my mind. I'd actually forgotten to say that I'll be sure to contact you when my dad is finished with the project. In the meantime, here's another little story:
During the Second World War, men with families weren't called to duty, so men who had mechanical or technical skills were in high demand by the War Department (yes, that's what we formerly called the Defense Department!).
That was an enormous draw for men who'd just spent the last ten years fighting tooth and nail to keep their wives and kids fed and housed through the Great Depression. Well, my granddad was one of those guys. He'd taken every dirty job under the sun moon and stars to keep his wife and two boys alive, and had even moved them into a boarded up house for a few years when they were evicted from the house they rented.
The War Department put out the call for able bodied men to help build the ports, bases, and airstrips required on the west coast for the Pacific war effort, so Granddad packed the family and all of their belongings into the old Packard and headed west from Tennessee.
They didn't know a soul in California, but Granddad was nothing if not resourceful, and he didn't let that discourage him. In a day when there wasn't a national interstate system of roads, he lit out in an old jalopy on a 2,000 mile journey to a better future.
As Granddad told it, somewhere in Colorado, the rear end of the old Packard began making a horrible grinding noise. He realized that the gears were probably going, and that he had to come up with a solution, quick.
They were in the proverbial 'middle of nowhere', and it was snowing. Granddad pulled the old heap off the road, and took off on foot to seek help. Some miles up the road, he came upon a farmhouse, and walked up to it. He knocked on the door and told the farmer there about his plight.
Now, Granddad only had enough money on him to buy enough gas and food supplies to get to the west coast, so this was a dire situation. He asked the farmer what (if anything) he could do to help him. The farmer was just as (if not more) broke than he was.
Granddad realized that if he could just keep the differential from grinding itself to bits, the old Packard might just make it to California in one piece, so he asked the farmer if he could buy some hog fat from him. The farmer gave him a big tub of solid hog fat, and Granddad hit the road back to where they were stranded.
With just basic hand tools, he got the differential open, and packed it full of that hog fat. He buttoned it up, and hit the road, and that thing made it all the way to Los Angeles.
Talk about making it go right!