"Hell, I felt mad as hell, and I would not take it anymore. The soldiers in Guadalcanal received all the glory. I had to do something to right my ship and get me sent to the Pacific."
He had been in charge of a tracker shovel to make an air strip on Guadalcanal towards the end of the war in the Pacific. His body had been thrown several feet away and glanced off of a tree. He had no idea where he was when he woke up in the hospital on the Island of Wake."
Al's words still riveted inside me anytime I think about the great lunches in the Rectory of the Immaculate Conception Church in Old Town, San Diego. The breakfast of eggs, sausages, and bagels tasted great but to meet Alvin Weaver, well that tasted even better. Earlier I had heard Father Ecker compare Martin Luther King to Mandela. At the end of the first mass, we were invited for a a five dollar breakfast inside the Rectory of he church. It included coffee.
. I could not resist the smell of hot sausages, diced potatoes, and hot vegetables inside the Rectory. In the kitchen, several volunteers were doling out food to those with a ticket. I sat down at the far north table. Next to Leonard and Max sat a tall distinguished gentleman-dressed in suit and tie. I overheard the tall, well spoken man speak about cars. I had been speaking to Max, also 92, when I overheard Al speaking to Leonard about the old 1950 woody parked on Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach. I took had seen the Ocean Beach woodies and wondered how he knew so much about cars.
"Hey sir, what is your name and how come you know so much about cars?"
"I had been working on engines since the age of 13. I was born in 1922 in a little town called Blanca ,Colorado. I had been fixing car clutches when my boss asked me to go down the street. 'The Old's dealer is having trouble with a brand new Old's. I am aware that you are interested in transmissions. The dealer is has trouble with an Oldsmobile and is aware you are interested in automatic transmissions.
"The owner of our town's only dealership took me to a brand new Old's that had been on the shelf for three months. 'Tell me why it has this gear problem?' I took the transmission apart and noticed that one of the two clutches had not worn evenly. One rubbed against the other shutting down the transmission."
. "The owner was amazed that I had found the problem and then asked me "to fix it". I did in a few days and showed him the part needed to make the automatic transmissions run evenly. I made a doll for the car so the two clutches would not hit each other. The Oldsmobile headquarters soon put the doll on all of their transmissions."
Al is going on 93 years of age.. He is quite tall and handsome for one so ancient. His hands are huge and one is missing half of a thumb. In the interview he does not miss a beat. His memory engine is close to perfection perhaps because he had been raised on a farm without the processed foods and air of the big city. His town owned only 600 people. He had been a farm boy in the town of Blanca, Colorado. He was born in 1921.
"When did you get interested in fixing engines?"
"My Dad and his Dad were blacksmiths. They knew how to weave a piece of steel into any shape they needed to drive a tractor or make a tool. Like my Dad, I was good with my hands, but growing alfalfa and potatoes was not for me."
"I forever tinkered on Model T Fords. I could fix anything about that engine in an hour or two. When about thirteen, my Dad came up to me with a serious look on his face. 'You know Al soon you will need to earn a living. If it is not farm work, do you know what it will be. I knew my life would be spent fixing cars."
"1942 I left Colorado for San Diego and joined up with the fighting marines.. A train dropped me off next to the Marine Depot in San Diego close to the Harbor. I had boot camp for only six weeks instead of the normal twelve because we were needed at the front. After boot camp I was deployed to Elliot Field, close to Miramar Air Field in San Diego."
"At eighteen en horn at eighteen years old, and had been the best marksmen of all the new draftees. I did not know what I had done wrong. I had learned to shoot a gun on my Dad's farm in Blanca, Colorado. I was eighteen at the time. The Captain, instead, put me in charge of the one cylinder tanks. I also had access to jeeps.
"I was the best rifleman their, and only twenty years old. The captain called me into his office.
The Captain called me in one day, and I wondered what I had done wrong. Instead, he told me my marks on the range were the best in camp and so he placed me in charge of the tanks. Yet the news from the Pacific theater gave the boys on Guadalcanal all of the glory.
I took a jeep with my buddy into town and on my return, concocted a plan to send me into the war. Instead of stopping at the entrance, I bypassed it and entered the base. Of course the Captain was outspoken about my behavior and sent me off to boot camp.
The camp was off Harbor Drive and instead of the usual 12 weeks, we were there for only six. I was in charge of supplying ships going over seas. I had to fill the ship with a few generators and anything needed for the convoy going west towards Japan.
The commanders did not know their orders until they boarded their ship. I eventually ended up in Corrigidor in charge of the generators for our camp. That was where a shell hit me and killed five others. I ended up in Wake Island and saw somebody who looked familiar. I found out after the war it had been one of my three brothers. Each had served u the war effort.
There is more on Alvin who passed away over one year ago. The other one tells how he met the love of his life after the war and settled down to fix transmissions, his last shop in National City.
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