40StudeDude
04-08-2005, 07:40 PM
HOW TO IMPRESS YOUR FIRST-TIME DATE
It started innocently enough…late on a Thursday afternoon, after work. Wait, hold on…guess that’s not 100% accurate…anything I’d ever been involved has never been innocent!
So, some weeks earlier, while out cruising around, I decided the dash of my 1964 Impala needed repainting, even tho my hardtop wasn’t that old, this being summer,1966. The dash had begun to fade in the direct sun while sitting on the street in front of my job -- staff artist with an advertising agency. I’d enjoyed owning the car and had the exterior looking fine…what with it’s new Pontiac Verdoro Green paint (as a result of an accident -- not my fault this time!), five spoke gray mags, blakwalls, jacked-up high sixties-style gasser stance and truk driveshaft-diameter exhaust pipes exiting each side of the car, just in front of the rear tire…someday I’ll elaborate on how that one came about cuz it’s quite funny…but that’s another story for another time!
I’d given it a little thot, about how to re-do the dash…it was a dark green. I didn’t want to go to the expense of having a body shop repaint it in the original color, should have done that while it was there. Now, I simply couldn’t afford that! So, not having the necessary materials or money, I figured my newly acquired commercial art background would help solve the problem. I went to the art supply store, downtown…amazing place back then, anything and everything an artist could ever want…of course, this was B.C. (before computers) and an artist had to have, at least, a smidgen of God-given talent to land a job as staff artist in an agency. This was years before anyone and everyone could become an instant artist simply by turning on a machine! They used to tell me in art school: “You’ve got talent, no machine can ever take that from you.” Well, yeah, that was, and is, still true, but these days, anyone that owns a Mac or can use Corel Draw (or any other “art” program) on a pc considers themselves an “artist.” Today it’s a lot easier to flip the switch on a machine and have it instantly than to try to find someone that can take your ideas and put them on paper.
I digress…I wandered around in the shake ‘n shoot paint section, the variety and colors were mind-numbing, but I decided that two-part candy shake ‘n shoot would be too messy, and would tie up the car too long, what with sanding, masking, spraying, drying and rubbing time …besides, I had a date Saturday evening with a gorgeous redhead I’d met while out cruising…met her in one of the local cool car hang-outs. After all, my 1964 Impala hardtop was cool – built 301” V8 (327” blok, 283 crank, 10.5 to 1 pistons, 1.94 fuelie heads-cc’d of course, pinned rocker studs, Duntov solid lifter cam, Carter four-barrel on an aluminum riser manifold), Borg-Warner T-10 2:20 low four-speed, Hurst Competition Plus shifter, Ansen scattershield, those 5-spoke mag wheels and shiny Pontiac Verdoro green paint…it looked great…and, of course, lettered on the quarter was the name “Gangrene.” That name caused more than a few double-takes back in the day! The interior was basically stock, I’d had the driver’s seat re-done in the original material cuz the rest of the interior was essentially non-used! About the only thing done to the interior was the Sun tach attached to the column and the ’62 Super Sport floor console on the floor surrounding the shifter. It was important to me to have the car looking its best for the coming Saturday evening, that meant getting the dash, ahead of the instrument cluster looking as good as the exterior. That said, I didn’t have a lot of time, or money, to invest in re-doing the dash…and I didn’t want the car in a state of disrepair Saturday, especially for her since this was our first date!
After wandering around the art store for a while checking out everything, I found a simulated Maple woodgrain stick-on paper in the silkscreen/signage section. It wasn’t cheap, but it was shiny, thick and had the grain and texture of real wood…it was used for building your very own stereo speaker cabinets…first class look on an adhesive backed paper. I thot it would be cool to have a wood-grained dash in a hot rod…and my ’64, at that time, was a hot rod…the engine had a nasty idle thru the headers/exhaust and the solid lifters sure caused a commotion wherever I went. It was not a muscle car. The woodgrain would be perfect for the dash of my Impala, eliminate the faded and scratched paint (from trying to drill a hole in the left corner for the tach wires), add a somewhat old timey look and go on fairly fast. I figured I’d get enuff to do the console while I was at it and then it’d match the dash! It did present one small problem though, the material wasn’t wide enough to cover the dash in one piece. I’d have to splice it. All the tools I needed were at work; triangle, ruler, aluminum handled X-acto knife and new, surgically sharp No. 11 blades, the kind that have a very sharp point. I purchased enough of the woodgrain to do the dash and console.
I felt good about the possibility of getting the dash done…but ran into a bigger problem. The purchase set me back…spent too much money for it, now I’d have to hit up the boss for an advance against the paycheck to take HER out Saturday night. Hope he’s in a good mood. I asked the next morning. He consented, but wanted something in return -- I’d have to work Saturday on the colored Tempera illustrations of the eighteen holes of the Cherry Creek Golf Course for the PGA Tournament program we were assembling. I agreed and he allowed me to leave work at two o’clock that Saturday afternoon. That’s cutting it close (pun intended), it didn’t leave me much time to apply the woodgrain to the dash in my Impala. I’d set the time to pick up Judy for 7 PM.
Evening. Time to pick up my date. I parked in front of her apartment and rang the doorbell. She was ready…and waiting. “Dinner and then a movie?”
She agreed. I held the driver’s side door so she could slide across the seat. She slid in. A blood curdling, ear-splitting scream rent the interior. She exited the car so fast, she knocked me down. She’s attacking me, flailing at me with her purse. What I’d do? What happened? From my position on the ground I saw her turn and reach…the aluminum-handled X-acto knife protruded from her right buttock. Wow! I wondered where I’d lost that knife earlier that afternoon. Talk about embarrassing! She wouldn’t let me help remove it…and when it was removed, the knife went sailing across the top of the car into the vacant lot…hmmmm, redheads DO have a temper! Good thing she didn’t use it on me! In no uncertain words, she informed me I’d better drive her to the emergency room at St. Anthony’s hospital.
Several hours and three stitches later, the evening was definitely ruined. The drive back to her apartment that night was extremely awkward…and silent.
I apologized profusely, repeatedly, on the way and called her many times after that fateful Saturday evening…it took two weeks of phone calls before she finally consented to another “date.” On the next evening out, she checked the seat before getting into the car …and every time after.
Two years later I married her and divorced her ten years after that! There were many nites we laughed about that particular Saturday evening… …
Copyright R.A. Jetter/Aden Rush 01-05
Like that story? There's a whole collection of them in my book: "Bangin' Gears and Bustin' Heads...available for a mere pittance from my website: www.RAJetter.com (http://www.rajetter.com/)
It started innocently enough…late on a Thursday afternoon, after work. Wait, hold on…guess that’s not 100% accurate…anything I’d ever been involved has never been innocent!
So, some weeks earlier, while out cruising around, I decided the dash of my 1964 Impala needed repainting, even tho my hardtop wasn’t that old, this being summer,1966. The dash had begun to fade in the direct sun while sitting on the street in front of my job -- staff artist with an advertising agency. I’d enjoyed owning the car and had the exterior looking fine…what with it’s new Pontiac Verdoro Green paint (as a result of an accident -- not my fault this time!), five spoke gray mags, blakwalls, jacked-up high sixties-style gasser stance and truk driveshaft-diameter exhaust pipes exiting each side of the car, just in front of the rear tire…someday I’ll elaborate on how that one came about cuz it’s quite funny…but that’s another story for another time!
I’d given it a little thot, about how to re-do the dash…it was a dark green. I didn’t want to go to the expense of having a body shop repaint it in the original color, should have done that while it was there. Now, I simply couldn’t afford that! So, not having the necessary materials or money, I figured my newly acquired commercial art background would help solve the problem. I went to the art supply store, downtown…amazing place back then, anything and everything an artist could ever want…of course, this was B.C. (before computers) and an artist had to have, at least, a smidgen of God-given talent to land a job as staff artist in an agency. This was years before anyone and everyone could become an instant artist simply by turning on a machine! They used to tell me in art school: “You’ve got talent, no machine can ever take that from you.” Well, yeah, that was, and is, still true, but these days, anyone that owns a Mac or can use Corel Draw (or any other “art” program) on a pc considers themselves an “artist.” Today it’s a lot easier to flip the switch on a machine and have it instantly than to try to find someone that can take your ideas and put them on paper.
I digress…I wandered around in the shake ‘n shoot paint section, the variety and colors were mind-numbing, but I decided that two-part candy shake ‘n shoot would be too messy, and would tie up the car too long, what with sanding, masking, spraying, drying and rubbing time …besides, I had a date Saturday evening with a gorgeous redhead I’d met while out cruising…met her in one of the local cool car hang-outs. After all, my 1964 Impala hardtop was cool – built 301” V8 (327” blok, 283 crank, 10.5 to 1 pistons, 1.94 fuelie heads-cc’d of course, pinned rocker studs, Duntov solid lifter cam, Carter four-barrel on an aluminum riser manifold), Borg-Warner T-10 2:20 low four-speed, Hurst Competition Plus shifter, Ansen scattershield, those 5-spoke mag wheels and shiny Pontiac Verdoro green paint…it looked great…and, of course, lettered on the quarter was the name “Gangrene.” That name caused more than a few double-takes back in the day! The interior was basically stock, I’d had the driver’s seat re-done in the original material cuz the rest of the interior was essentially non-used! About the only thing done to the interior was the Sun tach attached to the column and the ’62 Super Sport floor console on the floor surrounding the shifter. It was important to me to have the car looking its best for the coming Saturday evening, that meant getting the dash, ahead of the instrument cluster looking as good as the exterior. That said, I didn’t have a lot of time, or money, to invest in re-doing the dash…and I didn’t want the car in a state of disrepair Saturday, especially for her since this was our first date!
After wandering around the art store for a while checking out everything, I found a simulated Maple woodgrain stick-on paper in the silkscreen/signage section. It wasn’t cheap, but it was shiny, thick and had the grain and texture of real wood…it was used for building your very own stereo speaker cabinets…first class look on an adhesive backed paper. I thot it would be cool to have a wood-grained dash in a hot rod…and my ’64, at that time, was a hot rod…the engine had a nasty idle thru the headers/exhaust and the solid lifters sure caused a commotion wherever I went. It was not a muscle car. The woodgrain would be perfect for the dash of my Impala, eliminate the faded and scratched paint (from trying to drill a hole in the left corner for the tach wires), add a somewhat old timey look and go on fairly fast. I figured I’d get enuff to do the console while I was at it and then it’d match the dash! It did present one small problem though, the material wasn’t wide enough to cover the dash in one piece. I’d have to splice it. All the tools I needed were at work; triangle, ruler, aluminum handled X-acto knife and new, surgically sharp No. 11 blades, the kind that have a very sharp point. I purchased enough of the woodgrain to do the dash and console.
I felt good about the possibility of getting the dash done…but ran into a bigger problem. The purchase set me back…spent too much money for it, now I’d have to hit up the boss for an advance against the paycheck to take HER out Saturday night. Hope he’s in a good mood. I asked the next morning. He consented, but wanted something in return -- I’d have to work Saturday on the colored Tempera illustrations of the eighteen holes of the Cherry Creek Golf Course for the PGA Tournament program we were assembling. I agreed and he allowed me to leave work at two o’clock that Saturday afternoon. That’s cutting it close (pun intended), it didn’t leave me much time to apply the woodgrain to the dash in my Impala. I’d set the time to pick up Judy for 7 PM.
Evening. Time to pick up my date. I parked in front of her apartment and rang the doorbell. She was ready…and waiting. “Dinner and then a movie?”
She agreed. I held the driver’s side door so she could slide across the seat. She slid in. A blood curdling, ear-splitting scream rent the interior. She exited the car so fast, she knocked me down. She’s attacking me, flailing at me with her purse. What I’d do? What happened? From my position on the ground I saw her turn and reach…the aluminum-handled X-acto knife protruded from her right buttock. Wow! I wondered where I’d lost that knife earlier that afternoon. Talk about embarrassing! She wouldn’t let me help remove it…and when it was removed, the knife went sailing across the top of the car into the vacant lot…hmmmm, redheads DO have a temper! Good thing she didn’t use it on me! In no uncertain words, she informed me I’d better drive her to the emergency room at St. Anthony’s hospital.
Several hours and three stitches later, the evening was definitely ruined. The drive back to her apartment that night was extremely awkward…and silent.
I apologized profusely, repeatedly, on the way and called her many times after that fateful Saturday evening…it took two weeks of phone calls before she finally consented to another “date.” On the next evening out, she checked the seat before getting into the car …and every time after.
Two years later I married her and divorced her ten years after that! There were many nites we laughed about that particular Saturday evening… …
Copyright R.A. Jetter/Aden Rush 01-05
Like that story? There's a whole collection of them in my book: "Bangin' Gears and Bustin' Heads...available for a mere pittance from my website: www.RAJetter.com (http://www.rajetter.com/)