Okay - I'm a wordy SOB . . . just the way it is . . . Out of a Passing of a Loved One - Comes My HotRod Roots: My Mom's sister passed away last year -- my favorite Aunt Min. Anyway, Mom has been going through her sisters house . . . just walking through all those memories of time - sifting through 80 years of life. She found the first picture I have of anything to do with me and hotrods . . . just made me smile to see it - almost 40 years later. So Here is the Story -- Good to Start a Thanksgiving Week . . Well, my Aunt Min and my Uncle Dick were the ones that really started my Hotrod life. I grew up in SoCal, and my Aunt Min in SD did so much for my brothers and I - she was the 'Cool Aunt' who was like your 'second Mom' (she never had kids). She always participated in and influenced your whole life. Anyway as a young teenager I was blessed to get to go to South Dakota for a 'summer job' - to work on a resort that my Aunt ran. It was called the 'Spearfish Canyon Lodge' -- in the Black Hills of SD. At 13 years old, it was the coolest thing you could imagine - city kid got to work the whole summer in the middle of the mountains . . . had my own old trailer in the woods (nobody wanted anything to do with it, but I asked my Aunt if I could live in it, she said 'Yes'!). Old POS, but it was MINE! Anyway, my Aunt was dating a man -- Dick Stanley . . . my soon to be Hotrod Uncle. He found his Grandfather's original grocery truck -- 1936 Chevy - had the original sign of 'Stanley Meats and Groceries' on the side . . had a local guy put a 283 SBC in it, new brakes . . . that was about it. Dick didn't have much money - was recently divorced, was a teacher in a small town, but what he had . . . he shared with me. Anyway - this first summer, I met Dick and he just kind of adopted me as his 'hotrod son' - treated me as a friend and a young man. I was wild ape frigging mad about the fact that I got to work on a hotrod . . . he let me try my hand at things - encouraged experimentation. My very first experience of wrenching on a REAL hotrod -- big days for a kid like me. All summer long I used his 'hotrod' to haul stuff around the resort (too young to drive on the highway). Anyway -- here is the first picture of the start of my hotrod life . . . what a little shit I was! Taken by my Uncle Dick - great SOB that he was. The truck came to SoCal when I was in my early 20's, drove it to College . . . was going to restore it, but it never happened. Sad to say - let that one get away. BUT, I still have the grille - is on the wall of my workshop -- makes me smile when I look at it and think about Uncle Dick and Min. Fun stuff . . . wanted to share it . . . just to think of all those years ago - and how SOMEBODY takes the time to start you down this path that I follow today. Thanks Uncle Dick and Aunt Min . . . and Mom and Dad . . . for planting my early hotrod roots . . . I'm a fortunate SOB - so many invested in me . . . B&S
The Jalopy Journal
