I may have told this story before but here it is again!
Louie Pelzor
Back in the late 60's, I was on a 9 month detail with the Navy in my home state of Washington in and near Seattle. Met a local guy my parents knew by the name of Louie Pelzor. Now Louie has probably passed on quite a while ago but he embodied the sometimes typical tendency of some mechanical types of being an authority on something, in Louie's case, Harley-Davidson engines. His favorite detail was the "sixteen thousanths lower end" meaning the single throw crank and two connecting rods. He would figure to mention this in nearly every conversation about motorcycles in general and this detail was presented as the holy grail of engine building. I was at one of Louie's parties one Saturday night and he was holding forth in his workshop boasting of the rare and desirable "sixteen thousandths lower end" with about ten riders listening raptly. Then I asked the question: "Louie, just what is that sixteen thousandths you always talk about? Is it radial clearance, axial clearance, interference fit, what is it exactly?" There was dead silence in that room while it appeared Louie's mental motor was seriously overspeeding groping for the answer! No one had ever dared to ask such a question before!
Needless to say, I was no longer welcome, no longer tolerated and left quietly. I had been curious, that's all. I had no idea that Louie had built his lofty reputation by dazzling people with his crafty presentation, banking on no one would ever admit they had no idea what he was describing and would never ask the question!
Karl Shumaker
30 July 2019
