@down-the-road Hello, This old photo from 1959 reminds me of the early days that our dad tried to come up to the local So Cal mountains to pick me up from a week’s long stay with a bunch of our neighborhood kids, in a medium sized cabin. It had snowed most of the time and the roads were closed for us. We all went outside, but it was cold and we did not last long. It was much nicer to hang around fireplace. But, at the end of the week, our dad came up to the mountains in his big Buick 4 door sedan to pick us up and take us back to Long Beach. He did have chains in the trunk. As he got near to the cabin, the road was closed due to more snow coming down and the roads were starting to get covered. We saw the outside near the cabin and wondered if the Buick could get through to us. Well, the CHP had put out a road closure checkpoint and made anyone going further up the mountains to have chains on the back tires. Our dad could not put the chains on due to his lower back, so, he CHP told him to go back down the hill. The drive back down the hill took time, but he found a gas station attendant to put on the chains and drive back up the hill to the CHP checkpoint. The CHP still had the road blocked and the snow was coming down harder. But, people with chains were allowed to go past the checkpoint and continue with their snowy journey. Jnaki Our dad did finally get to the cabin and stayed awhile while the storm slowed down and eventually stopped snowing. So, we all got packed up and down the hill we went, back to the base of the local mountains to get the snow chains off. But, the road was clear about a mile to go to the gas station and the chains made a racket like no other on the surface street. Note: Many years later, our pristine 58 black Impala was the designated cruiser to go up to Big Bear City for the annual after Christmas vacation stay. Most kids in Long Beach high schools did this as it was a passed down tradition at most high schools, stay as long as possible and ring in the New Year in the mountain city… cabins and motel rooms, etc. Like a Spring Break in the snowy Winter month. There were cool cruisers and odd sounding hot rods all over the place. The Impala seemed to be one of the only hot rods running correctly, without any stumbling upon full acceleration. I had to adjust the carburetors to run better in this higher elevation. Most kids just took off their air cleaner and thought that was enough for smooth running. All that did was to make a “ssssss snake” sound while cruising around. Stumbling motors were all over the place. Except for one black 58 Impala. But, as pristine as the black Impala was, it was relegated to park outside and snow it did. About a foot of snow sitting on top of the Impala was not something I liked, but that was life in the mountains. It did take a moment to start and warm up, but I took care not to scrape the paint in getting the deep snow off of the car windshield. The movement forward and warm car in action, made the snow slide off of the back. Ha! For just town cruising, no chains were required as the road crews scraped the local downtown city streets clean everyday and made sure teenage visitors had a good time as usual. But, the departure day for Long Beach was snowed in again and the roads were packed with snow. So, it was slow going with chains on the rear tires for the downhill crawl, until we could get to smooth surface streets, again for the 100 mile trip back home. YRMV
Okay what’s the gag fellas ( joke that is) why am I standing here? I was bamboozled wasn’t I. That’s it! I’m calling my mom.
There was a story in the revamp of R&C in the late eighties or there abouts about an owner of a food store back in the day that walled in a car into his store and put a hole so he could see it and there it remained until many years later. Don't know if I got the whole story correct but maybe someone else can shed some light on this one. They had pictures of it being taken out.
Yes, you pretty much nailed it, there was an earlier article in Hemming’s Special Interest Autos, if I can dig it up I’ll scan and post it. I’m pretty sure the guy was a wealthy grocery store owner and he put his ‘54 Corvette in a walled in enclosure that had one light bulb and a small window. The owner lived on the east coast somewhere and the room was in the grocery building.
The Jalopy Journal
