Folks Of Interest How do you old farts do it?

I have good hand strength, but have arthritis pain in the base of my left thumb. I broke it too many times in my youth. I'll do this while I'm still working and have good insurance.

 

I'm still a youngin at 55 I guess, but your comment about flopping like a fish made me laugh. Was laying under the Poncho this weekend when the wife comes out to get me to do something. I shimmy, bump, slide my ass out from underneath and she laughing saying I looked like a fish out water. Must have been quite a site.


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I work harder than an ugly stripper... Hopefully it will keep going for years to come....
Chappy

 

My Avatar is my Correspondence School graduation picture from 1966. Surprisingly I don't look much different today.

To stay looking this young, I've taken my good friend Randy's advice that he gave me years ago. Randy built and raced stock cars at a local dirt track. He would pull old cars out of farmers hedge rows and places where you couldn't figure out how they got there in the first place. Once he had them back at what he called his "Speed Shop," he would tear them down with minimal equipment. I think he had a basic set of Craftsman tools and an old bumper jack from a Nash Metropolitan.

When I asked him how he managed to accomplish this with minimal equipment and stay in such good physical shape, he said, "I've always found it was easier to go find a good strong woman that it was to try to figure out how to do it myself."

Not all heroes wear capes....

 

A good friend of mine from Michigan had these window stickers made several years ago. Last I knew he was 85 and still building cars! We tried to get him to go to Florida for the winter, but he'd rather stay at home in the garage.

 

Yeah, I'm feeling it, everything takes longer and some things take a harder mental push, but I get them done. I'm finding my focus shifting from building to driving, I used to spend all day in the shop, now I'd rather spend all day in the car. What troubles me more than anything else....my friends are dying, when you're young its weddings and constant parties, now its waiting for another phone call.

 

Slower and with rest time outs.

 

At 76 I still enjoy building-more so than driving due to the nut cases on the road. If I don't have something to work on I get bored very quickly. Yesterday a guy called having problems with headlights on an early Ford.Went over with some tools and redid them for him for something to do-no charge and was fun. I helped some friends with some 8 sec drag cars. I did the wiring on them with their help? These are high dollar cars and they were making an attempt but I got them wired properly-several long days but was enjoyable. Called me one day and they were working on one of them. Said something was wrong with the wiring and there were sparks coming from the throttle linkage-how come? They had played with the wiring-yep-took off a couple of grounds! Went out and fixed the issue and showed them why. They also call me from races when one of them has an electrical issue and I try to lead them thru it on the phone step by step. I still like to do this type of work for the mental challenge-keeps me occupied-better than yard work. Too bad it takes so long (50-60+ years) to learn this stuff. By the time you have the knowledge you are in the 4th quarter.

 

"Too soon old, too late smart" or somesuch.

 

"The less you do, the less you feel like doing. The less you feel like doing, the less you do". Gotta break that cycle!!

 

A good attitude, pacing yourself, and try not to do anything stupid goes a long way. I’m 73 with a forty year old head so I have to work at the “doing anything stupid” part!

 

I have a friend that I have known since I was about 3 years old. He was a grown up then (young man),

On my fifth birthday I lost the braces that had been my legs since as long as I could remember. My dad bought me my first pair of tennis shoes (he called hem fairy fliers), black Keds high tops. He wanted to buy me a red and white stripped T shirt, like his. He could swing the Keds or the T shirt but not both. His Brother and my friend was there and he had enough in his chinos for the T shirt.

So there is the back story. I was sitting on my friends lap at my birthday party, trying to steal sips of his rum, I was wearing my new fairy fliers and my striped shirt. I asked him why he bought me that shirt and his answer was this, "Life is lived in minutes son, never ever miss a single one of them."

Funny the things that stick in your mind isn't it. The point of that useless bit of information is this I believe as aging rodders we all have this one thing in common, we are all basically trying to live every last minute. Any one of us can make it just one more minute.

 

You can't beat the grim reaper but you can make the bastard work for it.

 

Pain is your friend. It tells you your still alive!

 

Any which way we can.....

 

You guys are great...lol.
Funny and inspiring too.
Thanks for sharing.
Live it up, fellas.

 

It sneaks up on ya real fast !

 

That's the secret brother,keep pulling the rope everyday..'age and treachery defeats youth and skill everytime'..

 

74 and counting .....
There are a couple of things that come to mind, and I need to type them before I forget.



One of my favorite sayings is "Knowledge is of little use until experience has given it meaning"!
When my son was growing up and he disagreed with me on something, I would ask him, " Do you know more now than you did when you were X years old" ? Then I would say," When you are my age, do you think you will know more than you do now"? So trust me that I'm probably making the right decision.

I once sold an old truck that had been wrecked and the front wheels were splayed out. Wouldn't roll for crap.
Had a small winch on my trailer and it wouldn't budge it. Guy showed up with his trailer and a BIG winch.
He hooked it to the truck and drug it somewhat effortlessly up on his trailer.

Lesson 1: Get the right tools to do the things you want to do. I have lots of things in my shop that I have cobbled
up to do specific things, and lots of things I paid good money for to do specific things. You never regret having the
right tools available. I hate to borrow anything.

 

Beer helps a lot.

 

it does, doesn't it

 

With precision......

 

Just pressure washed the front of my shop. Took me all day and It reminded me i am not 20 anymore...........

 

Your story of loading the truck is right on. I remember a time before before I had a winch, myself and another guy loaded a 52 Ford Ht with 1 rear and 1 front wheel locked using a come-a-long. Man that was a bitch even taking turns. Then I thought I was living high when I bought a small 3K winch. Now I have a 12K winch and carry 2 snatch blocks besides although I've haven't had to use the snatch blocks yet

 

When I was in my 20's I worked at the local cement plant loading 94# sacks on trucks all day every day. 15 sacks per minute coming off the belt. The other day I was at Lowe's and bought some 50 # sacks of sand for my granddaughter. As I'm leaving a young woman asks me if I need help loading them into my truck. What a revolting development!

 

Im 58, be 59 in 20 days, lost everything in '08 due to the recession, now live in a rental with a car port but still building cars as best I can, just out of the hospital Tues. but out with the '47 today, got an '07 Crossfire and looking to sell it for an early '60's something. It's in the blood son, and in the heart. BigO

 

Hahahaha

 

73 years old and I put in a lift, I have a hand truck,floor jacks and an engine hoist. The hand truck is is indispensable.