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Available Now! Available at: Barnes and Noble amazon.com Powerful Publishers An autobiographical story by Lewis Bridges of high school romance and football in the by-gone era of 1955 |
| The following is an excerpt from my book. It is a sample of what you will read if you purchase the book. Every story needs a hero. My hero is a football team. The team has many colorful characters and gifted athletes. Many, like me, are not gifted athletes but were necessary cogs on the team wheel. Although some individuals did some heroic things, they are not the hero of this story. It is a team that was starting to build in elementary schools and on the playgrounds of public housing that becomes heroic. The team will have many players that will come and go before the right mix is found. It will be tested by failure and defeat until several catalysts are added to make a champion. This team will lose most of its battles. It will retreat for many years in the face of relentless defeat, but it will not quit. It will continue until that right mix is found that will make that break out championship season. Every story needs a villain. In my story, defeat is the villain. I am talking of relentless defeat that steals the enthusiasm of a team until they want to give up. Some individuals on the team were defeated and gave up. Fortunately, they went away. The team never gave up. Football is like tribal warfare, my tribe/school against your tribe/school. The other tribe/school is the villain also. The winning tribe/school takes the spoils of victory i.e.; glory and the adulation of the girls. Girls like boys that can protect them and the protectors are victorious in war. | |
 For those of you who don’t know, I will explain what makes a red neck. Doctors, lawyers, shop owners or any professional can’t be a red neck. Only a person who works with his hands bent over doing stoop labor can be a redneck. When the potential red neck bends over to work with hand tools in the dirt, he exposes his neck to the sun. Even if he wears a hat, that neck becomes sunburned; and he becomes a red neck. I became a red neck while working in the dirt with my father. He was a red neck from working on his fathers’ cotton farm. I come from a long line of red necks. All my ancestors worked with their hands in the red dirt of Georgia.
Most people think of poor white southerners as red necks. They can be anywhere and of any race. They are people who toil in the sun. A red neck can be in Georgia or Wisconsin. Gearheads are a sub division of your basic red neck. Most, but not all, rednecks are gearheads. Gearheads are guys that work on their cars and pickup trucks in the driveways of where they live. Many times it is for economic necessity. More often, it is because it gives them pleasure and a sense of accomplishment. Although I previously said that professionals can’t be rednecks, one category, engineers, can get in to the fraternity by virtue of being a motor head. I still work on my cars in the driveway. I don’t do it for economic reasons. I do it for pleasure. I work on my antique cars. Any modern car with computers and other complicated electronic equipment is sent to the professionals to repair. My mechanical ability stopped developing about 1975. I went to college and became a professional, an engineer. Engineers are mechanics that are good at math. That was me. I came in out of the heat and sheltered my neck from the sun. That didn’t change who I basically was. I was a red neck gearhead. Click the links below to see some gearhead movies! |
To order a copy of Memoirs of a Redneck Gearhead at $15 a copy including shipping and handling, email me at lewisbridges@cox.net with your name and address. I will include an invoice when I mail it. |
  Ted, our grandson, was 8 years old when he wrote a story about his family’s cat. Nancy illustrated that story. This is the resulting children’s book. |
To order a copy of "Fiona The Snow Shoe Princess" at $10 a copy including shipping and handling, email me at lewisbridges@cox.net with your name and address. I will include an invoice when I mail it. |
About the Author
Lewis Bridges is a semi retired professional engineer living in Virginia Beach, VA. He is a 1960 graduate of Virginia Tech with a degree in Civil Engineering. He has been married 50 years to the former Nancy Bell of Norfolk, VA. He has 2 children and 4 grandchildren. The son, Chip, is a gearhead also. The grandsons are yet to be determined, probably not. His daughter, Julie, is technically proficient, being the creator of this web site. His wife,Nancy, is a life long artist as you can see from the works shown elsewhere on this site. Lewis Bridges, Redneck Gearhead |
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There is a brother hood of men, Redneck Gearhead men. Whenever I am driving my old cars, people talk to me. It seems that old guys in silly old cars are thought to be approachable. I love being approached by strangers to talk about my old cars. I sometimes stand around them waiting for people to approach and talk. The conversations usually begin with ” I had a …. when I was young” or “my father/grandfather had a…. when I was young”. You can fill in the blanks with your/fathers/grandfathers vehicle. It seems that grandfathers had a lot of pick up trucks that grandchildren rode in with their grandfathers.If you have a question about my book or want to know more about the content, write me a note. I love email. I check mine several times a day, eagerly anticipating something from a friend or complete stranger.
©Copyright 2008 Lewis Bridges |
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