How old's the oldest H.A.M.B. member?60+?Tell us a cool story

This has to be a record...If this thread keeps going, I'll be old enough to add some stories!!!

 

I Am 70, Still Building But It Take's Longer Ha, Have Lots Of Stories But Can't Remember All Of Them, Started When I Was 15 Years Old, Think I Was Born With Oil In My Vanes.

 

I know, old thread but I was talking with my old bud Dennis over the week-end and eventually it got to "Do you remember what that dumb shit (fill in name) did...

Summer of '68 in Wisconsin and we were in Dennis', who's nickname was Bear, '56 four door Ford with a transplanted 352, three-speed with a Foxcraft floor shift conversion, shackles reversed, no front bumper, rattle can black primer paint job, hole cut in hood with a home made scoop sheet metal screwed down and no air cleaner. Somehow he had fit 8.50 x 15's on the rear and 14's on the front. It wasn't pretty but if you saw it coming you got out of the way. Bear didn't have a license so Stewy did all the driving.

At the time, you could drink beer at 18 if the bar was outside the city limit and served beer only. We had spent hours cutten the gut on Main in Barron then decided to cruise Rice Lake. The Green Parrot bar was just past the city limit and our other pal Ben-gy was along. His girlfriend had dumped him and he knew she was at the Parrot with her friends and he wanted to go in. Well, I wasn't going to be 18 for a few weeks and Stewy and Bear didn't want to go in. Bear was a big guy but a pacifist, ie. chickenshit, but everywhere we went someone inevitably would want to kick his ass.

Anyway, we're parked 15 to 20 feet to the left of the front door around midnight. Ben-gy went in and I jumped in the front seat shotgun with the other guys. We had a case of Grain Belt ponies in the trunk we were working on and a pack of Marlboros in the hard pack, the one that the top flipped open like a hinge that we were sharing. Warm night, t-shirt weather, had WLS-AM from Chicago on the radio coming in as crystal clear as it could through the dash speaker.

The front door flies open and riqochets off the side wall and Buzzy Anderson and a few of his friends stumbled out with a big heat hollering and in general raising hell. Buzzy was a huge farm boy and a flaming asshole to boot and didn't like the Barron boys from a couple towns over and really didn't like me because I was messing with his sister who was just about going to be fifteen. He glances over and sees the car, turns and is swaying a little trying to keep his balance and trying to focus and starts to move towards the car. I make eye contact with him and saw steam blow out his ears and eyes turn red as he starts moving faster. Stewy is cranking the '56 but it's hardly turning over. Buzzy is getting closer with his arm pulled back with a big ham fist. All of a sudden he tripped over his feet and lunges forward. I quick lock the door, lean forward and madly rolled up the window. The fucken guy crashes into the door and punches through the glass, nails Bear on the side of the head who in turn cracks noggens with Stewy. He starts cranking again and the 352 back fires and farts a huge flame out the scoop but catches. Bear's hollering at him to knock it off we don't have the gas. Stewy's grinding reverse while I open the door and shove the son of a bitch as hard as I could. We leave there with the peg leg spinning a rooster tail of gravel, kinda like that Charlie Daniel's song but we didn't come back for one more pass. Hit Hwy 52 and headed for home.

 

73 here-still playin with cars-40 #14 just left here--on the hunt for another one. Lots of old stories but none worth telling.

 

Judging from the post by the OP, anyone approaching 60, or even beyond 60, is simply ancient.
Keep three things in mind here.
1. When getting to 60 or beyond, an individual can become a "bank of knowledge", thus the purpose of forums like this to "pick the brains" of those who actually know an answer, in factual terms.
2. If one lives beyond 60, while still maintaining good physical and mental health, consider it a blessing.
3. If you have not reached 60 or beyond, pray that you will. Tomorrow is promised to no one.
P.S. I'm way beyond 60.

 

I am sure glad this post lasted long enough for me to reach 60 (+).
Graduated in 72 on an island with a class of 4. My Dad who is a real gear head, who is still alive, was in the military. I left home in 73, actually he and the rest of the family base transferred and left me behind. But I caught up to him a year later to go to college. Base was Port Hueneme, near Ventura where HAMB member TV had been before me. But I also had a class mate living there and we were wanta be car guys. He had a 65 Chevy van and I had a 65 Chevy truck, but not for the time kool short step side. I was up at Ventura Junior College studying photojournalism. He worked at the one of the mess halls on base and had a co-worker with a husband overseas,, yup,,, he was overseas,, and she needed help,,, Her husband wanted her to drive his car to keep the ocean air from rusting out the mufflers. His car,, 1964 Chevy Impala with a 409, dual quads, and a Rock Crusher. and she was afraid of it. Would Clark, my friend, mind driving it????
Wednesday nights in Ventura, the power plant road in Oxnard, Saturday cruising and pickup chicks, but we were geeks and it was just us, no chicks. Showed Clark how to power shift by pulling it out of gear and using the clutch just for engagement. Yes is was fast, yes it drank fuel like a flushing toilet, and it took premium but what a great 6 months until he came back and he so glad his car got driven,,,,,,,,,

 

Was 17 during the gas wars.
No young guys it wasn't a national military exportation. 1970. Look it up.
Work my first real job at a Sohio station. Those days we were graded on how well we treated the customers when they entered the pumps. Gas dropped to .23 cents. During the hot pants and mini skirt craze. We used to fight to get to a young gal at the pump. I'd make sure every bug and smear was eliminated on the windshield. Good ole days when next door there was a burger joint. First Chrysler hemi's I had ever seen. We about died hearing those things rev up.

 

LOL My mom lived in Lebanon for a long time.

I am not as old as you, I am only 62. I have been on my own since I was 14, the short story is that I had an altercation with my mom's boy friend and my granddad said that it was time for me to be on my way. He lived with me a couple of times before he passed, actually spent is last two months with me. I was 16 and I still miss him. Damn it.

So a story, I lived on this old bike from '77-'85. It didn't always look this good this pic is '82.



Most of the time it looked like this scratchy old pic




I worked when I had to and spent as much time on the road as possible. I have seen every state in the union except Hawaii, I wanted to go there but the highway was always flooded. A good chuck of Canada, it took e me three tires to get to Alaska, I kept meeting people who knew where there was a party someplace in Canada and I just could not resist. I tuned a pro-stock Camaro for part of that time and that kept me mobile and helped me along the way. I kept a '46 Ford coupe in Nor Cal which I used as a home base and when I needed down time for an extended period the Ford usually got me to and from while I was making repairs and working. I gave the Ford to a friends wife in '82, she drove it more then I did anyway. She still has it and tells everyone that it is my car and she is just using it.

So a story, the site is car related so a story about my old Ford is probably in order.

When I got the old Ford it had a 331 caddy in it. When the caddy was getting tired I had shoved a Cleveland Hamster in it. I had been living in and wrenching out of a warehouse in Redwood City, I had taken the Ford motor in trade on some labor. Anyway my bike was in pieces at the time and I was rebuilding and stocking up some cash, blah blah.

A good friend Rill Bill (RIP) had died in Oregon, and I needed to go to the funeral. I had all the parts for the caddy rounded up and the machine work was done so the day before I had to leave I decided that I really wanted to stuff the caddy back in the coupe for the trip. I started screwing things together in the afternoon. It actually was reminiscent of a trip that I did with my ol' man when I was little only it was a caddy and in a coupe and not a nail head in a roadster. My buddies started showing up one at a time and we began to enjoy our time together as we put the motor together and back in the old heap. Lots of rum and party favors and the sun was coming up in Redwood City when we lit it off.

Threw my road bag in the trunk and backed it out, my closest friend hollered, "Have a good trip I'll lock up before I go." The old Ford didn't miss a lick from the shop to Tigard and back again. I got there just in time for the wake.

That's the short version, there is more to the story but why bore you.

 

Gas Station Stories. I worked at a fancy new Phillips 66 station near Six Flags in Texas. It was architecturally "interesting" and we would get buses full of oriental tourists that would unload just to take photos of the place. I had never seen bus loads of orientals, nor had I seen the little packets of seaweed that they would hand out as a Tank You for the photo op.
The real Colonel Sanders was staying at the fancy resort next door and he would stop in every couple of days to fill up. Years later, I imagine he was selling franchises, but he never gave us any chicken. After one try, we sure weren't eating any seaweed.
There were two or three bays and customers from the area businesses would bring cars for oil changes, tune ups, car washes, wipers, and other general maintenance. My favorite was a 365 horse Vette roadster that would show up frequently. After any work, the boss would throw me the keys and tell me to go blow it out on my "impromptu oval test track". I loved winding out that 327, speed shifting that 4 speed, and exercising it's brakes. Apparently, the owner liked it too, because he kept saying how much better it ran after he would leave it with us, even if only for a wash.

I used to make jokes about getting old.
Now, I am old...and it's no joke.

 

LOL I never expected to get this old, trust me I took every precaution I could and I still got this old.

 

Once you learned about jumping chasms, the rest just happened.

 

Yea I guess if I hadn't found that out it would have been over real quick.

 

I ran my 49 ford on halfday dragstrip in 1952. I was eighteen at the time . Had a chopped 34 five window highboy in 1954. Bought my first 32 threewindow for a hundred dollars. Pulled it home on a chain. fired it up and running in about thirty minutes. Still got eight old fords ready to go. Drive a different one every day. Guess that makes me 83 first of july. PS building a 57 chevy truck at this time. Have always did all my own work. Hire nothing done.

 

My Ol' Man was born in July, he would have been 94 this year.

 

Getting close to 63...My Uncle owned Bills towing in Fresno, Ca. when I was a kid. Went over to visit and spotted a unbelievably clean all original two tone green 55 Nomad in his tow yard he had towed on a CHP call. I asked about it but he said he couldn't let it go as he was waiting for the owner to pick it up. A few weeks later, I was watchin Gilligans Island after school, when I saw through the window the Nomad on the hook pulled up out front. Damn, returning to owner I thought. I go out front and Uncle Bill asked me if I had $25.00 on me. I didn't but I told him I'd get it from dad. He drops the car and told me the owner never claimed it and if I paid the tow charges, $25.00, it was mine. Drove that car all thru high school and eventually sold it to by a 65 SS 4 sp. Impala, which I bought off the lot for $450. Try that now days, young'uns!

 

I was going to mention my father on this thread but I see he beat me to it.

 

Turned 71 last month. Still have my shop which I get up every morning and come to work. i don't do as much physical labor as i used to, but i am here. I'm also building an other car, a Buick nailhead powered 1928 Model
A Roadster, 4-speed, Quick change. Bought my first car at 14, a 1947 Ford two door sedan. I'll probably die in this place and that won't be all bad, at least it will be in a place that I like.

 

I am 66.Beaner I like your panhead! In 1964 I was 14 and riding an old Triumph 500-49 model- and wanted an HD big twin in the worst way,only problem is I didnt have any money.My buddy Fergie tells me about an old guy out on the lineville road who has an old Harley and a broken Triumph.We go out there and the Harley is a 41 EL(61 inch knucklehead) that obviously hasnt run in years.His Triumph is a tiger cub with (typically) the lower end bad.I made a deal with him to fix the cub and I get the Harley.We pulled the engine out of the cub and got a good crank for it from a local guy who raced a cub and had a bunch of stock crank assemblys.Took his engine back out there,put it in his cub and got it running.He gave me the title to the Harley and took off up and down the dirt road on his cub.Fergie had a 57 Ford pickup.The knuck had a sidecar on it and wouldnt fit in the truck.We removed the old Torpedo flexible side car and dumped it in the ditch. ( if I had been smart in them days I would be rich now!)Took the knuck home and tried to get it running- had to clean the carb,replace the cork float,clean and set the points etc.It ran after that but smoked.I ran it that way for the rest of the year.I pulled the top end and the valve guides were gone,rings were rubber bands etc. At that time HD dealers were not very interested in helping people who had old HDs(major understatement).I went to our local dealer -Joe Robison Harley-Davidson-and told Mr Robison my problem.I expected to have my 14 year old greasy smart ass thrown out of the shop.Mr Robinson listened and said "kid,come back in a couple of days".I did and he handed me a brown paper bag and said "get out and dont tell anyone where you got this".He refused any payment.In the bag was a NOS ring set,a bunch of NOS gaskets,2 freshly refaced exh valves and two NOS valve guides.Not many men like that around then or now .Joe is well in his eighties now and still has that shop.I believe his nephew runs it but Joe comes in every day.He sold the HD dealership part in the mid 90s,but kept the shop.So,I fixed the engine and ran it until I scattered it bike week 68.I have been in the motorcycle business ever since.

 

Junior in high school, had an after school job at a Skelly station 95th & Nall O.P. Kansas in '66. If you had a job you got to get out of school an hour early and skip study hall. One Friday afternoon I get to work and spy a Cushman scooter leaned up in one of bays and decided to take it out. Thing fired on the first pull so I start to circle the station. Awful Ed, full time employee, comes running out waving his arms, I wave back and keep going.

Turns out the damn thing was in to fix the throttle cable. I didn't know this at first but figured it out pretty quick as it kept going faster and faster as I'm circling the station. Next thing I see a bunch of guys all gathered in front watching me make loops and laughing. I'm starting to freak out as I don't know how to stop it, I've got all I can do to hang on. I've got so much speed that the foot pegs are starting to scrape the pavement. Heading onto 95th was out of the question as there was stopped traffic and the mall parking lot had too many cars parked and others looking to park to head that way. I had to make a command decision. As I fly past the pumps I see there is space between a couple parked cars that I think I'll fit. I threaded the needle nicely only to hit the curb and fly over the handle bars with the scoot flying over the top of me. We both land in the dirt; the Cushman looked fine, me, not so much. I was a hurtin' puppy but nothing broken. The guys are laughing so hard they're hanging on each and slapping their thighs. It took graduating and moving away to live that down.

 

Thought of another one, same gas station. It had three sets of pumps, six lanes with an overhead over five of them. One day it's raining hard and a lady in an enormous 4-door hardtop '65 deuce and a quarter pulls in to the lane with no overhead; there's no other cars in for gas.

Awful Ed jumps up and says watch this. He goes to the window which she barely cracks and wants it filled up with primo. The filler is back at the license plate so he has the cap wedged to keep the plate down. He starts to fill it and after a short while he pulls the hose out and backs up a few feet and just aims it at the filler neck. We're cracking up inside and decide to see who can get the furthest back and still hit the back of the car. It took like 30 gallons to fill it. Ed, with a straight face, tells her how much it was. Her response, "My I must have been empty."

 

I'm 78. Still playing with a '37 sedan I built in 1989. Back in the 1950s I was flagman at the old Montgomery NY drag strip for a while. Once flagged off Don Garlits there. Was active in the New Jersey Timing Assn in the late 1950s and ran their timing stand at the Old Bridge Stadium drags until uncle Sam got me.

 

75 now---
Had a good friend all thru el/hi school named Jon. Jon's parents purchased a brand new 1953 Cadillac Coupe to drive. We both were 13.
Couple of weeks later, his folks went to Vegas on a bus gambling tour, left the Caddy home. Jon decided that we should take it for a drive. We got out of town after dark and were "tooling" up a country road that ran thru the orange orchards, doin about 65 probably. In front of us out steps a 4-point Buck into the middle of the road. What do deer do in the headlights? Yep, freeze----

I can still recall the terror in Jon's face and voice trying to get that new Caddy stopped before hitting the deer. We finallly stopped about two feet from having venison all over that new Cad!
We put the car back in the garage and NEVER took it again!

 

I like to here, and also tell some funny stories, of back in the days. As a kid, I hung out at a local gas station in our town. We watched the cars cruise up and down the street, and it was also the hang out for the older Hot Rodders too. One evening as we were watching the traffic. An older gent in a 58 Ford four door, ran over one of those ,[ slow school zone signs], that the town cops had put out in the middle of the street. The old gent must have been drinking. As he stopped and then got out of his car. He then walked completely around it, looking to see what he had hit. The sign was under his car. After he circled the car, he than got back in it. But it was the rear seat! lol We were all laughing so hard by now. After a minute or two, he got out, and then got back into the front seat. And then he drove on down the street. But the sign was still stuck under his Ford, with a lot of sparks flying from it. ha. ha. Ron...

 

BABY....

 

I'm 66 I guess. I got plenty of stories but to the youg'uns let me pass on a bit of wisdom, you see us old fuks have been screwed proper for over half a century. So when you mess with us remember we got 50 years of hate built up and you don't want to be the one we unleash it on.
Just sayin.

 

Our town was a car town and there was a lot of cruzin. The first really cheap burger place was located just at the end of the one-way streets that ran thru Downtown. If you pulled out towards downtown, it was a wide 2 lane with parking on both sides. (plenty wide to get into trouble) Just past the Chevy Dealership was a cross street with light and a very small old Sinclair station with 2 pumps. If you pulled up to the outside of the pumps, you were only one car width off one of the traffic lanes.
Bubba had taken the bed off his pickup and was rocking down Main St. thru the light when a car pulls out on the right and forces him off the road to the left. Normally, he could have stopped, but with the bed off, all it did was skid the rear. There was a car being filled on the outside and here comes Bubba skidding. He saw the attendant back up with the nozzle in his hand, still pumping a gas out into the air. This could get ugly!
So, Bubba's truck skids into the back of the parked customer and punts it forward one car length. The gas jockey still has the handle pumping full bore. It all happened so fast, that he just reached out, removed the cap from Bubba's truck, and started putting gas in it.
The gas never stopped flowing and nothing blew up.
Today, someone will tell you you HAVE to wear a helmet to ride a bike. RIGHT.

 

I'm 70 and starting to feel like it.

 

Some of these stories sure conjure up some images !...LOLOL
The one about aiming the gas nozzle at the filler opening is great.
And the one about the Cushman scoot reminds me of Toad in American Graffiti.



In '65, a friend had a 64 Impala 4dr. Quite the car for a 16 yr old.
Of course the rest of us jealous boys egged him on about layin' rubber.
It had just a 283 with 2sp PG. Kinda doggy, really.
So.... to help him out a little, 4 of us lifted the back end of his nice white 64 so that the tires are off the ground (some riverlets of sweat did come forth) while he gets it goin to 80 mph on the speedo.
Then wham! let it go. It did lay some rubber but not as much as we thought it would.
Later, I raced him with my older brothers 390 powered '63 T-Bird. The Impala easily outpaced the T-Bird much to my chagrin.

BTW, clue me in, what's a Cleveland "Hamster" ?

 

Kick ass

 

I'm 69 now so I guess I qualify to play here too.
Mid winter, 1968, unbearably cold here in the North East.
I'm working 4 nights a week plus all day Saturdays to meet my tuition payments and keep my '58 Corvette fed, insured and maintained. Henry Perry owns the local Esso station where I work when not attending classes. I hate the job. I work the station alone at nights and it's in an edgy area, prime for stick ups. Not a well lit highway, not a soul nearby.
Always gave me a creepy feeling working nights.
One night a customer pulls in just before closing. He's driving a middle 60's Diesel Mercedes. Thing is clattered badly that below zero night.
He pulls up to the island, crack the drivers window about 4 inches and passes me a can of STP. He says its too cold for him to step out and it's too cold to shut off his crappy engine and demands I add his STP to the running engine after buying a whopping $2.00 worth of diesel.
I try my best to polity explain that he must shut off the stinkin' engine but he stubbornly refuses and demands I pour his fucking STP into his running engine.
I finally oblige with disastrous results.
Mercedes Diesels have tremendous crankcase pressure and as I pour the thick goo into the cam cover, the blow-by crankcase pressure blows these gummy strings of 90W back all over my arm, all over his engine and further back totally covering his windshield.
I grab a blue colored wiping towel of the light pole towel box and try cleaning the stuff off his windshield. That only made it worse and water just spread it around and promptly froze to the goo and the glass.
Mr. irate retail consumer is on a tear now an screaming profanity's at me like you can only imagine.
I remind him of my original request and warning to kill the engine but he only goes off on me worse now.
I turn, walk away, kill the outdoor lights, read the pumps lock up and leave him there still cleaning his crap off his windshield.
I quit the next night. Got a job that weekend in the parts room at a Lincoln-Mercury dealership working only 2 days per week and for more money.

More tales to follow later.