Jive-Bomber submitted a new blog post: Hot Rod Memories last a Lifetime... Continue reading the Original Blog Post
I don't know Mike, but I wish him the best! JB, hope you two can have some seriously GOOD memories this year.
I'm liking the article and glad you have the memories! The advice is sometimes seldom heeded but live life like there's no tomorrow. I'm sorry your buddy is facing those issues and I can truly sympathize and not to make small of his issues, I too am having some neurological issues myself. Doc says it's serious but wants more testing and doesn't want me to go down the rabbit hole. You just never know what is going to happen or when. I recently retired and I fully intend to keep my foot on the gas until the last. Good Luck and Godspeed!
My first time was also in 2007, late bloomer. Went with two buddies that are no longer here, they're gone but I'll always have the memories. And EVERYBODY heed Micael Ottavi's advice, "don't waste a day" because I too , "have no idea where the time went but it is gone."
I have a similar story. I was a car dealer, my buddy Gary a real estate salesman. One of the ladies he worked with p***ed away and he bought her minivan that was low mileage and like new. I got it detailed and sold it. We split the profit. I told him this is extra money let's use it to go to Bonneville. I made reservations for planes, rental car, and got it all planned. We were flying from South Bend Indiana to Salt Lake City. We were there all week, got the proper clothes, hats, bag chairs etc. The first day we introduced ourselves to the crew in the tower. They let us sit under the tent and when they took a break, we let them sit in our chairs. We had a great time between the starting line, the pits, the parking lots at night. If you have never been plan a trip life is short. Research is the key. It gets very cold at night and very hot during the day, the sun is the brightest you can imagine. Friends made, interesting folks, die hard's that had been there for over 50 years. Great memory.
By the way I was in Indiana last week for my cl*** reunion and had breakfast with Gary, he just retired at 83 and is enjoying good health. He like restoring old tractors and reselling them. JW
In the 30 plus years I spent driving truck back and forth across this country, I have p***ed the Tree of Utah and the exit for Bonneville several hundred times. I've filled my coffee thermos at the Peppermill an equal number of times, but I've never had the opportunity to go to the salt flats. There was always somewhere else I had to be. In a couple of weeks, I'll turn 80. Maybe I should stop doing what I feel I should be doing around the house, and just go.
Bonneville trips are the BEST for building memories. I took our daughter to her first trip to the salt this year and it was a great time.
My late friend Steve Paleos was inspirational when I was building my avatar..He died 30 years ago..He told some funny jokes....
1957 Hello, I am at a crossroads of trying to find the highly, custom Tahitian Red painted, chopped, Ford Truck we saw as little kids. It was found while wandering around our Westside of Long Beach neighborhood on any weekend or especially during the summers. But, as much research, contacting the remaining family and any historic photos we found, we skip to 2018 and find out that the owner has p***ed away. The family was not doing any historical searches on the hot rod dad. The custom Ford truck was involved with lot of local families, as the owner of the shop where it was always parked was the local optometrist, not ophthalmologist who does eye surgery. But the guy who fits all of your families’ eye wear needs, testing, gl***es and possible referrals to eye surgeons if necessary. His custom chopped Ford Truck was parked out in front everyday for all to see. My whole family wore gl***es, except me for some reason. So, the history of old cars and hot rod memories started with my brother’s 51 pale yellow Oldsmobile as his first car. He had worked for a couple of years and saved up enough to buy the car at age 15. Everyone laughed, but he was determined. By the time he turned 16 and had his license to drive, his car was lowered, had some cool pipes and ended up as a cool cruiser as the years rolled onward. High school in 1956-59 was a crucial bunch of years. Teenage Wasteland as depicted many years later in music… Don’t cry Don’t raise your eye It’s only teenage wasteland The exodus is here The happy worlds are near Let's get together Before we get much older Jnaki From that simple start as a captive audience with a bunch of older teenagers, started the deep interest in all things mechanical, including hot rods, drag racing, motorcycles and yes, even high performance surfing. It was the ideas learned from watching older teens and their hot rods. Putting them in place as budding mechanics and having enough success to feel comfortable in doing all things “hot rod,” was a step in the right direction. Those stories, and old cars to nice looking semi custom hot rod cruisers all played their part in my own development. Indirectly, lessons learned in experiencing the world of drag racing and hot rod building allowed us to follow it to our next step in life. The involvement and advice from those more experienced gave us the confidence to do something like build a compe***ive 1940 Willys Coupe with a 671 supercharged SBC motor as a couple of teenagers. From that point on, lessons learned were able to be applied to other steps in life as we grew older, faced the rest of the world into families and expanded experiences. It was not “the end all things” we learned, but, how we absorbed them and put them to use when the time was right. They just seemed to appear and come out to help us when it was a wall of sorts… YRMV
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