I'm not a "motor-head" but what a wealth of information, possibly because Mr. Murphy was kind enough to mention that I caught the proper reference to "Deuce" in my ? about the real words of that Springsteen song-
Never had a performance car- owned a 1958 Harley Sportster (with the shift peg on the brake side) first car was a 1951 Chevy Coupe with the stick and the old Blue Flame 6 (216 CID??)- ran great-I usually drive a Ford Ranger pickup or a Jeep Wrangler- both with stick and 4 cyl. stock engines- but loved the discussion of the performance "goodies" great stuff indeed-
As to answer Mr. Dallas' question- About 4 years ago this coming Fall I flew down to central FL. as part of a Church outreach- this was after the Four Hurricanes had hit FL- we stayed in Avon Park in Citrus Co.- about 125 clicks due South from Orlando- my first time ever in the State
My "roomies were two gents from SC- both active in their Church and Habitat 4 Humanity- Bob is a retired Lt. Col. USAF and flew fighter missions in Vietnam and flew with the legendary pilot Col. Robin Olds- He is the source for my understanding of the term "The Whole Nine Yards" as coming from the WW11 era- the length of the .50cal MG belts in the wing mounted guns of that era- We still send each other Christmas cards, so if you have a different version of the meaning you be kind enough to share here, I'll be glad to send it along to Bob for his perusal (like my friend Buck Hamlin- he doesn't have a computer)-
No questions (so far) about the Hobson's Choice bit- so we'll leave a sleeping doggy at rest with that- BUT- Bob also told me what the pilot's term "Balls To The Wall" meant- the H shaped throttle handle of WW11 aircraft- they added rubber balls in the groved metal section to keep the pilots from smashing their knuckles when they shoved the throttle handle all the way open (against the firewall) of the cockpit apparently-
