I was about 6 or 7 years old when dad started talking about "overhauling" the Model A Ford. I didn't know what overhaul meant but gathered it had something to do with fixing the car. I figured that out because our neighbor, Ray Seward, was going to help him. Ray was the mechanic that lived on our road "out home."
Like most of the folks "out home" Ray did not have a regular job. Not many did back then but friends and neighbors helped each other as a matter of survival. I didn't know it then but the Country was just coming out of the Great Depression. We were poor. All of us.
Ray eked out a living fixing cars and fed his family and others by hunting and fishing. Ray could catch, clean and cook anything edible. I still remember the time he got the neighbors together for a Coon supper. And I still remember the taste, no thanks!
Ray's dog was a mongrel he trained to hunt. The dog's name was Peanuts. My mom had a huge flock of chickens and it was about impossible to catch one, let alone catching the one she wanted. Ray would bring Peanuts, point out the chicken mom wanted and that dog would fetch just the right one.
Anyway, back to the Model A. When the day came for the overhaul, dad piled concrete blocks in the car and on the running boards and went up the road to Ray's house. At the time, dad worked part time in town so he borrowed Ray's homemade motor bike to ride in as far as the end of the streetcar line where he would park the bike and ride the streetcar into town.
The Model A was gone about a week and dad and Ray worked on it every night. When dad brought the car home the concrete blocks were gone and he was very happy with the way the car ran.
It all seemed logical to me, you put a heavy load on the car until it was "overhauled" and when you remove the load it runs better. It never dawned on me that the blocks were to hold the car up while you were under it working on the engine.