ok, i'm finding i need more and more clarification as this post goes on.

here is what i understand to be going on here:

combustion gasses slip by the rings, and so fill the crankcase. those gasses obviously have to be evacuated from the crankcase, or they would build up pressure that would force the gasses, (and oil as someone posted earlier), back into the cylinders.

in my case, the vacuum from the engine opens the check valve in the pcv, which then draws these crankcase gasses into the engine to be burned again.

the air flow goes from the breather on the opposite valve cover, through the crankcase, through the pcv valve and into the carburetor.

if there was no pcv valve, there would be one breather on each valve cover, and the gasses would just escape by being pressurized out of the breathers, (more like exhalers at this point).

so if my issue is there, then the pcv valve is closed when it shouldn't be, which gives the engine only one breather to evacuate the crankcase from. if this isn't enough, the pressure is forcing gases and oil back into the cylinders, hence the burning oil.

so right now i can do 2 things:

1) check the pressure in the crankcase, (do i do that just at idle, all the way through the rpm range???), and
2) just get rid of the pcv, plug the port on the carburetor, and put another breather in the valve cover where the pcv was.

am i on track with this???