THE 42-YEAR ITCH

The year was 1976. The United States was celebrating its 200th birthday, Gerald Ford would lose the presidential election in November to Jimmy Carter, Sylvester Stallone’s movie Rocky would win best picture at the Oscars, and in Paducah, Kentucky, Bob Gill and Gene George were on the search for antique gas engines.

Bob and Gene had known each other since ninth grade, and worked together. Gene was just starting to become interested in engines at the time, though Bob had been collecting since 1968 (see GEM, June/July 2014). Early in the year, one of their coworkers had mentioned that his wife’s