Grandpa is a Badass

So my roomate Brandon and i were hanging out, talking to his Grandpa, and he started telling me things i had never heard. Now mind you its my roomates grandpa so i hadent heard alot but in the times ild met him, it was small talk, and typical grandpa conversation.

This time was different. Grandpa Lee, (Lee Blaisdell) began to talk about hot rods, something grandpa hadent around me, and something that his grandson, my roomate, is only mildly interested in.

As he spoke my eyes got wider... with the stories, the tales of his cars, the races, the first 5 hot rod magazines he photographed for... my jaw fell more and more.

As i sat there like a child on a camping trip listenin to ghost stories, trying to pick up the peices of my blown mind, he stepped it up again. He walked back to his room and returned with photos of him and his cars. Now i could try to use elequence and fancy words to try and express what i saw, but ill let the pictures speak for themselves.

Photos 1,2, and 3 are him and his car, and photo 4 is his grandson sitting on my car at Santa Maria.

After i posted this i googled grandpas name and this is what i found;
"Lee Blaisdell was the official SCTA and CRA photographer, who later worked for Pete Petersen at Hot Rod Magazine from January to May, 1948. His treasure trove of photos were given to the SCTA and we are now trying to locate them. Don Garlits has some of Lee's later photos and has made them available for the SCTA Minutes 1937-1948 book"

 

cool story, sweet car (s), bad *** stache' dude.....

 

ya were going over to his house tonight, im going to see if he wants to go for a ride in the 34. i think that would be amazing.

 

You got a fierce bad*** chop on that car bro, like it.

 

sweet car and cooler story

 

Wow!

 

To hell with the ride.... let him drive!

 

Hellmet on the HAMB will freak when he sees the Calori roadster. Bad***!

It looks like an early photo...pre-side pipes.

 

kick *** picks. the grandson looks a little creepy though...

 

way cool story...jeffrey

 

Cool story!

 

awesome story , gran pops made cool history

 

That's a Bad*** story! I find myself looking at the older folks around me and think, what great things they have done and stories they may have to share. Its all to easy to just see them as old. I say make an older person happy and ask them what they have done in life.

 

Cool, I read a lot of his stuff and studied his photos when I was pretty young.

 

I love hearing stories like that. Learn all you can from that man, he has wealth of knowledge that we could only hope to have. More importantly I bet he loves telling all those storied from his past. Wish my Grandpa was still around to talk shop with.

 

It allways seems to be lost on the ones closest to the bad ***. At least he has taste in mustashes. I also sat on the tire of yer car at Santa allthough I was naked.

 

What he said.

 

Did Lee Blaisdell (Grandpa) build the roadster in pic #1 and then sometime later sell it to Jack Calori? Hit Grandpa up...I would love to know more about the first pic.

 

Get Grandpa on the HAMB and let him post up some really cool photos and stories

 

Nice! It's good to listen to the Old folks, sometimes they suprise you.

 

i want to know more about this too. i want to talk to grandpa. billy

 

I was working on my Model A roadster in the garage in my apartment complex when one of my neigbours (in his 70's ) commented that he had "a Ford" once. So what I thought?
The next time he came by he showed me a picture of his car. It was the fastest Ford Customline in Australia! and he was a F1 driver and drag racer! Needless to say he has a lot of stories to tell too. I have moved house now, but have kept in touch with him.

About the same time I was constantly having starter motor problems with the flathead, so invariably I would be cranking the car making a huge racket. Another neighbour came over one day while I was working in the garage. I was preparing for a showdown. He introduced himself, and told me that he'd grown up in Southern California and that he loved the sound of my flathead firing up because of the memories it brought back. Said he grew up in a 32 roadster. It is amazing that people like that are all around still.


Adam

 

you can call my grandpa on the phone, tell him what motor you've got, what you're trying to do and whats happening and he can tell you everything you need to know about just about anything to do with it. i called him once trying to time in a honda motorcycle the first time i built a bike by myself and he was telling me what timing marks to look for, how it all lined up, some common issues with that particular motor, etc... they say when you pulled your car into his shop he knew EXACTLY what was wrong with it before you could get out of it. people used to pull out of races when he showed up at the strip. now he restores old john deeres. wins slow putt compe***ions (tractor spinning so slow you have to use a special tach just to detect it). old folks are really incredible. i really appreciate my elders.

 

Please tell the the guy sitting on the tire to invest in some pants that dont make him look like an Ethiopian famine victim.

 

why do i not have that photo as my desktop background? are you waiting to unvail your racey photo in playgirl or something? haha

 

well, we didnt get out last night, he went to bed early but were going to try again for tomorrow, and i will ask him all your questions. he did mention to me that in 2 weeks hes doing an interview for hot rod magazine, they want to talk to him about the old days.

He has tons of photos, including never published personal photo collection of marilyn monroe and another of john wayne. crazy!

 

Damn Hipster Grandson!! More concerned with growing that stache and listening to Vinyl then learning the history of his gramps!!! Awesome find. It's one after another with you.

 

Wow, excellent story. Thanks for sharing. Yeah, let's get grandpa signed up here on the hamb. Love to hear some more. Killer '34 by the way too. Damn nice looking car. Between that and grandpa, hard to understand why your roommate isn't getting inspired. But everybody can 't be into cool old cars. He's probably still alright.

 

Cool story. There's no telling the stories that are churning in that man's head.
Sounds like he has a helluva photo collection too!

 

I see in the first photo, it says LEES SPEED SHOP. Was that his shop or maybe LEE CHAPELS shop? Great story & pics.
Thanks!