Paint & Body Work

Good news for us with this. We finally got our old 1951 Chevy truck painted red. It needs two more coats but most of the dents are gone and all that priming and sanding is over.

First coat of red paint on our 1951 Chevy truck. We have decided to name her, Penny.

New glass for the windshield and doors has been ordered. The motor has been taking apart and everything miced, checks and it seems the motor had been replaced maybe with a factory rebuilt motor sometime maybe 50 years ago. Last tag was 1975. Back in the time this old truck was parked you could still get factory rebuilt motors a lot of places even Sears Roebucks had car and trucks motors. Still a long way to go before we can drive this old truck. I’m an old man now but I have always had patience. My first car I bought when I was 14 was a 1929 A-model Ford that had been cut down to hall peaches. Later I found a body and when was 15 I drove my car to a teenage party. It was summertime and it looked good with other teenagers there saying it did. I was dressed up and there they played spend the bottle and a girl won the spend and she kissed me. I mean this was not a little pick it was a kiss. It being summertime as a teenager driving a car I put together from junk to a party and being kissed by a pretty girl talking about my bedroom blue eyes will put a memory in your brain you never forget. When Pam and I ran away and got married I had a supped-up car. A, 1958 Golden Commander Plymouth with two 4-barrel carburetor and 150MPH on the speedometer. Not long after we married at 15 and 17 we had a cop after us and doing something stupid with him behind us I ran a stop sign at a cross road by cutting my light off looking for other lights and back on at over 150 mile per hour and then turning up another road the cop at least slowed down at the stop sign and we watched him going on down the road light still flashing with us setting there with our light off watching. Like I said, “Young and stupid.” A year and 4 mouth later we had a baby. A little boy. We decided to get rid of the hot rod. It always took money with this car, and we had a car payment. We bought a junked 1952 Chevrolet car from and old women and put it back together. With Pam polishing and waxing this old car, it looked brand new. As for how I got the hot rod car I quit school a 16 lied about my age and got a job in a cotton mill. As how we got married a 15 and 17 we lied again saying we were both 21. As for Pam reaction to us getting away from that cop. Let’s just say one kiss wasn’t enough and that squeal she made I can still remember. Why was the cop chasing us? I may have got on it a little hard leaving town. Nothing bad. Looking back I don’t think anything we did back then was really bad. We are still married now 61 years later but it, is, harder to make her squeal like she did back then. Looking back, I do believe our life has had some adventure to it. We are going back soon, to our sailboat we designed and built we left, in the Western Caribbean for the winter.

                                                         The Adventure of Life Goes On.

Pamela Ann Hauled out waiting for our return

 

Labor Day Weekend

What a week this has been. We are starting to miss our sailboat we live on most of the time back in the Caribbean as it is getting closer to the end of summer and we will be going back to the Western Caribbean and be on it for the winter. Labor Day has passed and is a big event near here in the small town of Hoisington. About 18 miles from our little house out on the prairie where we have been for the summer. They have been having trouble blocking off the town all day with highway 281 going through it so this time they shot the fireworks off at the go-cart racetrack on Saturday night. The car show was there too and not so good. Maybe it was the weather. It looked like it was going to rain all afternoon. As far as the fireworks we drove our old truck out to the go cart racetrack and parked just inside the road going to the pits near where they had parked the fire trucks. We had been told not to go into the pits. I don’t think we were doing anything wrong parking there on the road to the pits. The fireworks were schedule for 9:30 but about 10 minutes till 9 it stared to rain just a few drops, but you could see lightening all around. We heard the little race go-carts stopping and the fireworks stared. The fireworks show is always good but this time it was like they needed to get them all shot before it started to rain hard. I don’t think we could have chosen a better place to watch. I know with us old now and still together I can’t make Pam squeal like I use to, but those fireworks had her squealing. Watching the fireworks that close setting in the back of our old antique Chevy pickup truck we drive out here with-it sprinkling rain with lightening lighting up the sky all around us. I guess that is about as country redneck as it gets. On Monday it was the Labor Day parade. There were 104 different units in the parade. Eight marching bands, dance schools, fire trucks from four different towns, several ball teams from different schools, and two of the crazy Shrines groups. Motorcycle clubs and cars of all eras.

Tesla in the parade

T-Model Ford

They had one of the biggest tractors I have ever seen there. The weather was nice and there was a big crowd there to see the parade. When I was coming up on our farm we had a B-Allies-Chamber tractor with 12 total horsepower to the draw bar. That meant it was like having 12 horses pulling together. The tractor in the parade had 600 total horsepower so that means it can pull like 600 horses pulling at the same time. And old man behind us said., “With the price of everything we will be going back to mules any day now.” Made me think about a man we know that is working with a group that is working on a machine that can kill everything in the field so if the grass won’t come up until, grass seed finds its way back in the field. This way no need to plow and what you want to grow there has nothing to compete with. Less fertilizer. With 8 billion people to feed there is no going back. On the farmland I was raised on back in South Carolina they just grow houses now it looks like. Only thing constant is change and there is no going back. Out here they do feed the world. Being out here is part of our life we love. Being here is like an adventure. Living in town I get boarded quick, and we have never lived in a city. You’re probably wondering why we bought a little house in this town. It’s a ghost town with only 35 people living here and as I said 18 miles to buy a soft drink. I don’t think there has been a house built here in 50 years. The streets are still dirt, so this is not a normal town. To say it’s peaceful here. That is not always the case. Sometimes there is a truck going by going to the grain silo out on the highway and the mailman can break the peace once a day as he goes by. The adventure goes on. After traveling like we do the food out here is great. Home grown tomatoes in the back yard and Kansas steak on the grill. Summer is about over, and cold weather is coming, and we will just read about is as we sail around on our sailboat this winter. To our friends in the Caribbean, we will be coming back in a month or so.

                                    The Adventure of Life Goes On

We are just about done with the new upholstery in the 1972 green truck, that we drive most of the time when we are in Kansas.