[39Tudor]

Back in 1965, my parents looked at a used 1964 Galaxie 500 XL convertible. It was turquoise and white with a white top. I know the car was a 390 (side fender badge) and automatic with console shift. I thought that would be a great family car but what does a 7 year old know.

Instead, they ordered a 1966 Ford LTD hardtop and took delivery of it in November of 1965. That car was loaded onto a Santa Fe railroad auto hauler just after Christmas in December of 1965. When the car arrived in Seattle in late January of 1966, the car had front and rear damage from the adjacent cars not being properly restrained. It also had oil on the roof and hood from the leaky car above. Dad was pissed!!!!!

My father refused to accept his new car with less that 500 miles on it and his employer was forced to buy the car and my father ordered another identical car from a dealer in Bellevue Washington. We had an Avis rental 1966 Dodge Dart for about 8 weeks while we waited for the replacement to arrive.

Thanks for stirring up the memory banks with that photo!

 

[39Tudor]

Back in 2009 when I was flying from Wichita to Chicago to purchase my Bullitt, I got seated next to a project engineer who worked for General Dynamics. He was a weapons system design engineer working on the 30mm cannon for the Stryker Armored Vehicle.

For the next 90 minutes, I was treated to a bunch of video clips he had on his iPad of them doing operation testing with the cannon. I saw enough to know I never want to be on the receiving end of one of those rounds!

 

[39Tudor]

383……393! Whatever it takes!

 

[39Tudor]

Paul, when was the first time you played pool and who taught you the finer points?

 

[39Tudor]

Paul, the summer of my 10th birthday, I got to spend a week with my grandparents. They lived in a small town of 1200 people in central Kansas. On Tuesday and Thursday, my grandpa would go down to the local pool hall to play dominoes. That summer, my grandpa asked me if I wanted to go along. I said yes and just after lunch I hopped into the front seat of his 1953 Ford and we headed downtown to the pool hall.

Grandpa would sit down at one of the domino tables and they would start playing. They spoke in German and my grandpa smoked his pipe. Grandpa gave me 2 quarters and I got buy a snickers bar and a bottle of pop for a quarter. Then shove the other quarter into the pinball machine and play until I exhausted all my credits. The domino game only lasted about an hour.

When the game broke up, my grandpa would give me a dollar bill and I would take it up to the bar keep and get a rack of balls. Grandpa taught me to play pool. He always smoked me pretty handily but I sure had a lot of fun with him.

I spent a week with my grandparents every summer after that until I turned 16 and started working. Playing pinball and pool at the local pool hall. Probably some of the fondest memories I have of my grandpa Hank. He passed away in 1980 two months after I got married.

As for playing pool, I used to play for fun when I was a teenager. Never good enough to do much but it was fun. When I got married and we bought our first house, I bought a used pool table and we used it for a while but then kids and life got in the way. Sound familiar? Once my son got to be a teenager, I was glad we still had that table in the basement because he was usually down there playing with his friends instead of runnig around getting into mischief.

Once both kids got married and left the house, I sold that pool table to a young couple with 3 boys. I am sure they got their use out of it. I managed to fill that empty space with 3 billiard themed pinball machines. I purchased a Bally Eight Ball, a Bally Eight Ball Deluxe, and a Bally Eight Ball Champ. These are the centerpieces of my coin op collection.

I now have 3 grandsons and we are usually in the basement banging on one of the pinball machines whenever they come to visit, just like I did 50 years ago with my grandpa except now I can reuse the quarters!!!!!

Thanks for sharing your story of your journey as a pool player.

 

[39Tudor]

Congrats on the new ride. May it serve you faithfully for many miles!

 

[39Tudor]

Jimbob, is your mind right?

 

[39Tudor]

Well Jimbob, I missed two on the first quiz!
89%
I‘ll just head over to the corner now, put on my dunce cap, and settle in on that stool of shame!

 

[39Tudor]

Jimbob, I really did miss two in the very very very first quiz.
Picked Desoto instead of Chrysler, then picked Packard instead of Cadillac.
I have really nice viewed things from up here on the dunce stool!

 

[39Tudor]

The SNL episode where the good padre told America to tape a piece of clear cellophane on your TV set and Find The Pope in the TV pizza contest was pure comedic genius. They had an image of Pope JP2 superimposed on a pepperoni!

I also remember reading where the good padre got himself in trouble when he visited the Vatican and ended up getting detained for impersonating a member of the clergy.

I can only imagine what an audience with Don Novello would be like. Absolutely hysterical!

 

[39Tudor]

Like the tee shirt says Jimbob….. Injection is nice but I’d rather be blown!

 

[39Tudor]

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

 

[39Tudor]

I had the good fortune of seeing the Hirohata Merc in person.
I was working in Redondo Beach California back in 2002 and made a side trip to the Petersen Automotive Museum on my Sunday off.
I have seen this car in many magazine articles and finally getting to see the real deal was well worth the trip. It is really a work of art!

 

[39Tudor]

Today is a great day…….
We get a bonus Cutie next to a Coupe Deville!
And for the record, it’s called A Detroit Lean when to cruise leaning over in the passenger seat.

 

[39Tudor]

I missed two.
Both were AMC questions.
Not many AMCs roamed the streets here in Wichita back in my high school days.
I remember my dad’s cousin owned a 1968 AMX. He towed it behind his motor home!
Other one was a 304 V-8 powered Gremlin. That sucker ran like stink! He was rarely seen dragging Douglas but every now and then he would appear out of the shadows.

 

[39Tudor]

Thanks for the new quiz Jimbob!
I got 9 out of 10 right.
Guess what question tripped me up?
That pesky AMC question.

 

[39Tudor]

Flying sure has changed, and not for the better if recent events are any indication.

First time I flew was with my parents back in January of 1966. We flew on a Continental DC-6 from Wichita to Denver and then on a new Braniff 727-200 from Denver to Seattle. Pretty impressive stuff for a 7 year old.

During my 36 years in the jet biz, I think I flew almost 1 million miles. Never really had any problems to speak of. Flying overseas in Business class was always the only way to fly. United gave me a courtesy bump to first class on a 777 one time.

My last flight was from Seoul South Korea to Chicago. Thirteen relaxing hours in business class on an ANA 777.

Never saw a flight attendant get punched, never saw passengers getting in fights, never had cops come on the plane and remove an ignoramus! Not once in all those times.

Like Pauls says, If I can’t drive there, I guess I’m not going

 

[39Tudor]

Well Jimbob, I guess it all depends on how you kept track of the time.

If I were to use my watch, I left Seoul at 11AM local time on Friday morning.
I arrived in Chicago at 9AM local time on Friday morning so technically, I arrived at my destination before I even left?

If you actually follow the flight on the entertainment screen, we were in the air just over 13 hours and cruised along with a nice tailwind at approximately 550 mph. And it was a balmy -55 degrees Fahrenheit outside.

When you fly a heavy twin like a 777, you have to follow ETOPS (Extended Twin Operations) rules and fly up the coast of Russia and then along the Aleutians before entering over Canada. If you were lucky and landed a seat on a 747 or A380, those guys just point it straight east across the Pacific and knock a few hours off the flight time.

All I remember is when ever I flew from east to west, jet lag was easy to readjust from.
When I flew west to east, like this trip, my body clock was messed up for a couple of days!

 

[39Tudor]

On this day in 1989 I was driving westbound on State Highway 526 in Everett Washington.
It was about 12:30 in the afternoon on my way to work.
The sun was our that day! Sun was so low in the southern horizon that it was actually below the visor when I swung it over to the side window.
That‘s when I really realized how far north I really was!

 

[39Tudor]

No,I did not see Bigfoot on that day but I did see him in a bar in Concrete Washington that same year! But that is a story for another day!