Cars, and Furthermore
by Barry Bauer
The history of a person’s cars probably says a lot about the person. In my case it’s about my first car, my first new car, and a clunker in between.
I got my driver’s license at the age of sixteen but because of my living situation I never drove again until I was eighteen. That’s when I bought my first car with my oldest brother’s help, a 1955 Ford Tudor Sedan with a very clean interior but some rust on the outside.
I worked half the summer of 1962 doing body work with fabric patches to cover the holes and a gallon can of Black Magic to fill in the low spots. All I had in the way of equipment was an electric drill, a disk sander attachment, plus lots of sanding paper with homemade sanding blocks.
Because there was a 1956 Ford dragging main every weekend that was painted “Lincoln Green” I decided to go with that color. I think the car was owned by Gary Ernst. Bob’s Auto Body, on N. Lansing St. at that time, told me they’d paint it for twenty bucks but I had to wet sand it, mask it off, and wipe it down with paint reducer. That much I could do so I bought a gallon of Lincoln Green from Paul Automotive and Bob’s painted it.
I finished the job by adding white wall spats (fake white walls) and cone hubcaps and I enjoyed the rest of the summer dragging main on the weekends. Everybody that was anybody was downtown then.
I eventually sold it to a friend because I needed the money.
My next car was a 1957 Chevy convertible. What a piece of crap that was. The roof leaked and I was told later it didn’t have the original engine in it. 57s came with a 283 cubic inch engine and I was stuck with an older 265 which eventually blew. With the help of a neighbor I put a new top on it which stopped the leaks but the car still smelled like a wet sock going down the road.
I worked at Cain Buick & Pontiac at the time and when the owner, Norm Cain, found out I’d bought a car from another dealer he raised holy hell and demanded I get rid of it. Looking back at it I know I was wrong but being nineteen at the time I didn’t think about stuff like that. I quit my job there and went back to work at the St. Johns Egg Station.
In 1963 I started working at Federal-Mogul and I told my brother I wanted a new car. I had in mind a 1964 Pontiac Catalina. He wanted me to hold off until I had more time in at the shop. I told him that was fine but I was going to get a 1965 Pontiac Grand Prix if I waited.
Knowing how great the Pontiac design engineers were at that time I ordered a 1965 Pontiac Grand Prix sight unseen. No photos, no nothing. When it finally came in I wasn’t disappointed. Talk about having faith in something. I could have been stuck with one of those bombs they came out with a couple of years later. I had picked the right time to make my purchase.
A couple of years later I traded it in for a 1967 Buick Riviera but that’s another story. Even today I still have dreams of that Grand Prix and I dream that I stored it out in my father-in-law’s barn and could go out there anytime and drive it into town to drag main once again.
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And Furthermore:
If the plural of beer is beers, why isn’t the plural of deer, deers?
The best thing you can do for your kids is to leave them with good memories.
With all the cloudy days we’ve had we can’t tell that we’ve gained forty-one minutes of daylight in January.
In this country there is no such thing as a right to life supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution. We abort babies and our government tells us we have to submit to anybody who wants to harm or kill us. Learn to hate the word, submit.
To grade last year’s Lion’s draft picks we only have to know that their number one pick, Riley Reiff, couldn’t break into the starting lineup on the offensive line that was poorly rated. The only starter out of the 2012 draft lasted a few games before joining a lot of other players from that draft on the injured list.
Death is the process by which a person is either slowly or suddenly dismantled.
Until the next time . . .