I was raised in a family with two men who were always tinkering on things – my Grandpa, who during his life had been both a mechanic and a carpenter so who knew how to do just about everything, and my dad, who also did everything, not because he knew how but rather because he just couldn’t see paying somebody to do something he reckoned he could figure out by himself – and this was all before YouTube videos. So, from an early age I was getting yelled at for holding the flashlight wrong, fetching tools (usually the wrong one) and trying to turn wrenches. My first build project was helping my Grandpa cobble together a ‘29 Model A roadster from the ground up when I was about 8 years old, which included tons of trips to swap meets and a lot of wire brush rust removal.

Of course  going to high school in the late 70’s, I was surrounded by muscle cars, so when it was time to upgrade from my ‘46 CJ2A (4 banger that would hit 50 mph downhill with a tailwind), I was for sure going to get either a ‘69 Z/28 or a ‘70 Boss 302 – right up to the point where my dad reckoned that while I was living under his roof, that wasn’t going to happen. He figured I’d kill myself, and looking back at it he was probably right. So, my high school and college car turned out to be a ‘75 Buick Skyhawk with a 231 V-6, but I’m pretty sure it identified as a Camaro. After college graduation I stepped right up to a “not so muscular” Honda Accord, but since I was a single engineer in California with money to burn, I decided I needed either a 70/71 big block Stingray or a Porsche 911SC.

That dream got interrupted by overseas assignments, which took me to Oman, Scotland, Holland, Peru, Argentina, Venezuela, short stints back in Wyoming and Louisiana and then China and Russia, after which I took early retirement at the ripe old age of 52 – and most of that time I didn’t even own a car!

My first acquisition was a simple “dump run” truck, which I figured I’d need upon moving back to Selah – I made the mistake of starting “a little rust repair”, and after 2.5 years it morphed into the FrankenFord Monstrosity and went from dump run truck to show truck. And since I can’t leave anything alone, it’s now undergoing a Cummins swap and a bunch of modern upgrades!

Then, it was on to muscle cars – flush with retirement payouts, my first purchase was a ‘69 Trans Am convertible clone and while at the dealership my my soon-to-be wife spotted a ‘68 427 tri-power ‘vette. What to do but get them both? The roadtrip back from Texas was quite an adventure which resulted in trashing the Pontiac engine, but that’s another story. Of course the ‘vette is on my lift now getting a bunch of upgrades, since I can’t leave anything alone. Suffice it to say that I didn’t learn all about these cars “the easy way” by having one in highschool; I caught the bug much later in life, which is an expensive way to do things when you’re shelling out way to much for cars that “are cool” but you really don’t know anything about them.

Next came the “revenge trip” – I took a long trip through 11 states and 21 classic consignment dealerships and got that ‘69 Z/28 and the ‘70 Boss – sure showed my dad, even though he’d passed years before. The Camaro is long gone, but since I can’t leave anything alone, I stripped everything out of the Boss but the headliner and did a nut and bolt concours restoration on it, learning a lot in the process and meeting some pretty cool Boss owners and judges along the way. Turns out that neither were quite what they were supposed to be, turning into a couple more expensive learning experiences.

The craziness continued with a ‘72 Longhorn pickup (it’s rare, it’s gotta be worth a bunch when I finish it! They’re not, and I never finished it), a white ‘58 Impala like in American Graffiti, then a ‘71 Riviera GS that I’d looked for all over the country and ended up finding it in Omak (and since the old guy had a really nice ‘58 BelAir, I nabbed that, too), not one but two ‘68 Chargers when I was thinking about my big Hellephant project, a run to California to pick up a burned and crushed 1 of 1 ‘71 RoadRunner (Richard Petty promotional car, only ‘71 hemi RR built in Petty Blue), a 73 ‘cuda cloned to look like a 71, a few ‘71 Satellite Sebring parts cars to work on the RR with, a ‘70 Hemi ‘cuda that had been off the road since the early 80’s… the list goes on and on.

The craziness settled down when I got married for the first time at 57 years old, so the herd has been thinned a bit getting rid of the Z/28, the 72 Longhorn pickup, the two ‘58 Chevies, a ‘73 ‘cuda project, about to offload the ‘71 Riviera GS. The current “big build and money pit” is a ‘68 Charger Pro-Touring aimed at the Autorama/World of Wheels/MCACN/SEMA/Good Guys circuit in 2027. Oh, and my “modern” car, a 2013 Boss 302 Laguna Seca that I of course also had to tear apart and tinker with.

I’ve been heavily involved with the Sun Country Mustang Club since getting the ‘70 Boss, planning the Ponies in the Sun show the past few years and traveling to Mustang shows all over the PNW, but that too is slowing down as I’m gearing up for the shows associated with the “White Hellephant” Charger.

As the saying goes, “That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it”!