I ask Don how much for the rusty Chevy out back. He says well, I payed your dad 200 bucks a piece for them, so I suppose I should get that back for it. I said sold, and wrote check #2. We loaded up that car, and headed for home. So I bought two 2dr ‘56 Chevys in 2 days that were both my dad’s cars for $700.00. Now before anyone goes B.S., just remember these cars are rough, MN salt, being pushed around by tractors, mother nature having ravaged them for 40 years. Truth be told I would have paid pretty much anything to get my grubby little mits on these cars. I have the hardtop running and I tear around in it in the summer. The post car is pretty rough, but that car is going in the shop this summer. Hopefully I can get it put together enough so my old man can take it cruising sometime in the next couple of years.
SR Side Note:
John, this has to be one
of the best finds
of the year!
Keep SRM updated when
these two great pieces
of the past are back
on the road. A photo of
father and son cruisin
down the road
is in order.
Congrats’ on your
incredible find!
A Tribute to my Dad from your daughter, Chris
Was your dad a "Mr. Fix-it"? My dad sure was. He was the superintendent of a 36 unit apartment complex for over 40 years. When I say "superintendent" please don't get the image shown on TV of a surley guy in a t-shirt holding a beer and watching the tube all day! Being a super was his 2nd job which began when he returned from his first pre-dawn job as a mailman. The super job was supposed to be "part time", but when you lived on the premises it became a full time job with nights and weekends ... and holidays.
I remember more than once our phone ringing during suppertime (we called it supper, not dinner) and it was one of the elderly, widowed ladies calling because her arthritic hands couldn¹t work a can opener to open a can of soup. (no electric can openers then!) I remember my dad quietly laying his napkin down & walking 4 buildings over and up 3 flights of stairs to open the soup can for her, then return to his supper without ever a complaint.
Dad could fix anything and would never turn down any size project. I started thinking about all the hazardous things he did in an average day's work. Like the familar call from mom (and 36 others!), "George, the pilot light's out!" And there he¹d be, on all fours with a lit match in one hand, turning the gas knob with the other, and head-first in the oven - till you heard that 'pooofff' sound when the pilot light lit and blew out the match!
Or during the first few days of winter when the old cast iron hot water radiators would start knocking or not heat up. It was time to "bleed them". A process of turning the old, paint stuck value with a key, until all the air hissed out & water came out. And rarely, the value cover might blow off ... with a gusher of scalding water behind it.
Or shoveling snow with the slate shingle roof 3 stories above his head. As the sun heated up, the snow would slide off the roof sometimes bringing a few shingles with it and landing with enough force to impale the razor sharp shingles a few inches deep in the frozen ground!
And the old electrical fuse boxes - (in an apartment building there was an entire wall of them) - they could be harrowing when the box started sparking for some reason or a glass top fuse broke off inside ... and then the needle-nose plyers would come out!