Thread: My bride and I..............

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........have an agreement. She does all of the guilt and most of the worry.........that way I'm freed up to be the irresponsible one.

However, time has imposed some limits on just how much irresponsibility one can endure. The spirit is willing, the body............well, you know the rest. I was reminded of this (yet again) the past weekend. 30+ years ago I bought a Beck 550 replica, the second one he sold to a paying customer. His operation was in Upland, Ca. at the time, and I was in the Seattle area.........roughly 1200 miles apart. So, I borrowed my then bil's Courier pickup, a friends boat trailer, and off I drove. I was pretty excited to get the car and ended up driving straight through.........something just under 24 hours. The drive down was pretty uneventful..........well, except for the drunk driving the wrong way on I5 at just after 2:00 am. But got there just the same. Of course Chuck didn't have everything ready as he'd promised, so I ended up hanging around his shop for a few hours as he finished some things. By that time I was getting a tad tired, so he offered me the couch he had in his aircraft hangar at a nearby airfield. I tried to crash there, but only got a couple hours sleep before submitting to the itch to get back on the road home.

The trip back went pretty well, the trailer with car lashed down tracked fine, load stayed secure. But somewhere on the Oregon side of the Siskiyou's it started to rain............hard! It was pitch black out, wipers going as fast as they could, and my eyelids weighing about 100 pounds each. Pulled into a rest stop and gave into the sand man. Yes, a six foot tall guy can actually sleep crosswise in the cab of a Courier. Not comfortably mind you, but it's doable (for a guy in his early 30s anyway) After daylight appeared the rest of the trip home was routine. Tadah!!

Flash forward those 30ish years and a similar story unfolds. I've had the itch for a '32 Ford sedan for awhile (to go with the pile of chassis parts lounging in the garage) and managed to make a deal on one down in the Bay Area, hey, only about 800 miles this time. Well, the above mentioned bride (the one responsible for most of the worry) wasn't too excited about my doing another banzai run to pick up junk (she doesn't mind the junk, she's given up on that, it's the banzai part she didn't appreciate). According to Google maps it was supposed to be a 12 hr 20 min trip.............they don't allow for towing a trailer and doing the mandated 55 mph limit in California (stupid law, but cost me a small fortune ignoring it a few years ago when I got the Fairlane in Sacto), so I knew it would take a bit longer. Upshot is, she insisted she come along, and that we be sensible about it (where's the FUN in THAT!!!). Turns out that with the first home game of the season in Eugene we lost about an hour in Oregon stop and go traffic (on I5 no less.........dumb ass Ducks!) So we ended up spending the night a couple hours short of our destination the first day. Once we got to the gal's house there was a little more drama as trailer backing room wasn't quite as adequate as she had said (what's new right?), but the three of us (yet another reason the bride was right.......again) got the body loaded in the trailer with a little ingenuity involving some 4x4s and three dollies. All loaded and ready to go we hit the road, did about a 12 hour day (including the 4 hours of loading time) and spent the night in Medford. The next day was a pretty ho hum jaunt home. Nowadays the truck is bigger and nicer, the trailer more appropriate, and the pace............somewhat more measured.

As much as we'd like to still be 19 in our minds, the ol' bod just doesn't always cooperate....................but that doesn't stop us from playing the game the best we can does it?

Fortunately the bride was along on the trip!!!! Some of us at times forget the date on our birth certificate!!!!

Anyway, nice fine Uncle Bob---what's the plans for this one???

Wow! A good story, and a new build thread, too!! What a deal!

OH YES!! been there and done that. I have found that at 68 things don't go anywhere as fast as I remember them. Good luck with your new project, there always fun.

What a great story Bob! Sounds like you and I have a lot in common in the spouse department and I’m glad to say my bride of 40 plus years is by far-and-away my best friend and often times the voice of reason! Looks like a fun project and I’m sure you will keep us updated!

Have Fun
Glenn

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

Anyway, nice fine Uncle Bob---what's the plans for this one???

Well, the chassis pieces I have are rails, CE X member, dropped '32 heavy axle, and a Rodsville quick change, so it will be mostly a traditional style. I've got a fresh Merc flathead sitting on a stand, and a few T5 transmissions to choose from. Body will remain mostly stock looking, so fairly simple build compared to some. There's a long way to go on this one so there won't be any build threads in the immediate future, I just decided to get this one now because it came with a good title which made the chassis stuff make more sense. I've got just about all the parts needed to put this one together already so now it's just a matter of time available.

Originally Posted by glennsexton

What a great story Bob! Sounds like you and I have a lot in common in the spouse department and I’m glad to say my bride of 40 plus years is by far-and-away my best friend and often times the voice of reason!

Yep Glenn, this one is my keeper (no matter how you interpret that). We have all manner of discussions when on the road together.........she's a real joy. That last leg we spent most of the time hashing out some story line details for a novel she's writing..................hmmmmmm, maybe I should get co-author billing.......

Awesome story Uncle Bob, and glad you two have such a excellent relationship to travel so far together cooped up in your truck. My ex wife and I were like that, we didn't need to communicate all the time to enjoy each others company, still miss her greatly and to this day, will always regard her as my best friend. RIP Melanie..
'32 Ford Tudor with a slight roof chop done in the Ken Thurm way would be an excellent addition to your stable.

Your having way to much fun!! Looking forward to the build cause you can build them right!!! Pete

Great story Unc and a great new project. Your Bride is a keeper for sure.

Jack.

Great story and very understanding wifey too! Congrats! Oh yeah, your new project will be sweet too! Model A anything around here is hard to find anymore unless you have deep pockets!

I never did start a build thread on this one, but what the heck, this'll do.

This car is moving along faster than I'd anticipated (for me anyway) and has some decent progress going on. In part it's because I've been more motivated to do what I do, and as certain physical limitations have imposed themselves I've enlisted the aid of a talented young(er) guy to do some of the work for me.

I'll just post up a series of pics showing what's been going on the past 15 months since the pile of parts was dragged home. Typical stuff; glue together some chunks of metal to make a frame, hang some sheet metal to see how it's going to fit together, then on to the piece by piece refinement of the assemblage.

And a couple more in process;

Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

... got ... loaded ... with ... three dollies.

Bob's bragging again

Cool story, so let's see some more photo's of that deuce!

Wow, sell those gennie fenders on EvilBay, run it as a highboy with some raucous lakes headers and it'll be super cool!! 'course you'd probably need to chop the top some, and that's probably not the right thing to do to a gennie body..... Oh well, keep it pristine & clean, I guess. Lookin' pretty cool, Unc.

John, obviously you're a dirty old man.................................................................I think I like that about you.........

Roger, you're close, one of the pair of rear fenders I picked up with the body turned out to be pickup fenders that are now in Canada. The fronts weren't as nice as I liked so moved those along and got a better pair. No lakes headers for this one, I'm going toward more subtle, sort of like my buddy Wayne's (pic attached) only not quite as nice.