....cool...we would break off a pencil in the governor lines on our multifuel 5 ton trucks and hook the line back up...the mech's couldn't figure it out.
You guys that went to Nam ,,Thanks ,,and a belated welcome home ,,glad you made it back ,in '65 the Air Force offered me $4000 bucks to re-up ,spread out over 4 years tho ,,BUT ,,no garentee i'd stay in Alaska ,,and the USAF was looking for guys to join the "Grey Ghosts" to go to Nam ,,i declined and took a Alaska discharge ,,None of the "Grey Ghosts" came home,they were used as decoys ,,seting up Air Strips to get the North to go attack then while the real Air Strips were set up elswhere ,,the Commander of the "Grey Ghost" survival training camp was the only surviver ,,he never went to Nam,,
Nah - there's some weird phenomena where lots of folks claim to have participated in famous / infamous events, even when they did not....
Came home from the Army in April '68 bought a new 1968 Plymouth Satellite in July. Spent a couple summers getting re-acquainted with my wife and we had our son in Oct.'69 and bought a house in Midway City, Ca. in Dec.'69.
I spent the summer of '69 crawling through the jungle with a M60 machine gun on my shoulder. When I got back (and out of the hospital for 7 months) I bought a '68 corvette with a 435hp 427 tri-power. I think I came closer to death in that car than I did in Viet Nam.
Dueces ::: I was at Wal Mart in Branson West a week or so ago ,there was a group ,,6 or 7 ,,hi school girls there that were wearing hip hugger bell bottoms ,,me being me ,,i asked em if they were from the '60's and they got em as hand me downs from their parents ,,,NOPE ,,brand new ,,they said ,,bought offa the net outa a store in New York ,,WHEW !!! loved that ,,,they're making a come back if some hill billy chicks in the Ozarks are wearin'em ,, Maybe i better buy me another '69 SS396 Chevelle ,,relive ALL those days ,,,well,,some of em anyway ,,can't date a chick over 50 years younger than me ,,lol,,lol,,shoot ,,sum a that anna cold beer would prawley kill me ,,
"Summer of '69" ,,one of the very best times of my life ,,had a '54 Ford F-100 Drag Truck with a 396 BB anna Muncie i raced every Sunday at Polar Dragway ,, ,,my daily driver was a new '69 SS396 Chevelle ,,helped run the Airport Union 76 Gas Station ,making good $$$ ,,Life Was Good ,,
groovy, gonna head on down to max yasgurs farm , country joe and fish , cream , big brother and the holding company , jimi hendrix , etc etc
no, the Earth sucked.....the wind blew..... and according to the Moody Blues . timothy leary's dead ....no no no....hes outside looking in Don't Bogart that joint my friend......Pass it over to me. c'mon sign along guiys I Don't want a pickle I just wanna ride on my mooootersikle. i sometimems wondered if he rode the mooootersikle down to "Alices Restaraunt" hey who remembers Alice B Tokalas? gimme an F i gotta get off here and go look for my embroidered bell bottoms.
Had the most fun in my life that year. Dated some beautiful girls the year, worked in the parts department then into the sales department of a local big Chevy dealer. Saw some COPO's come and go on a regular basis's. had my ass in many a Corvette and Chevelle and Impala Super Sport. Road-tested numerous 442's , Gran Sports, GTX and R/T's and oooh soooo many more. That year I personally owned a '64 XKE roadster, a beautiful ivory and copper 2 tone '60 Impala coupe, a '65 Impala SS and lots more I've probably forgotten. I remember watching the NASA landing,qualified for legal drinking age, I got deferred from the draft when I lost my hearing in one ear, got engaged to my current wife ( married to each other for 40 years this September) and yes.........dressed like 60's kids and weighed only 130 pounds, soaking wet then. It was a fun time to be a kid in America the beautiful!
I was 22 years old and I was there at least I think I was there, like the saying "if you remember anything from 1969 then you weren't there", that's all I remember about 1969. It was the beginning of the end. It was the beginning of moral decline, Free Love and LSD, flower power, a couple years after Haight Ashbury, those those are the idiots running our country today. It was Blast Man and, you had to "keep on truck'n" man, I traveled the country and was in almost every state but mostly a state of unconsciousness,.... I think ...I don't really know but it was crazy fun and fucked up at the same time. Man landed on the moon, I had returned from a few cruises with Uncle Sam and the Tonkin Gulf Yatch Club, Congress was debating smog laws and fucking up the emissions on cars. DOORS,, BEATLES, Joplin STONES, , new bands were URIAH HEEP, FLOYD, LED ZEPPLIN, DEEP PURPLE, It was a time of reverbaerators and 8 track tapes were just coming out. It was THE MOST fucked up time and at the same time it was a bad ass time to be alive and experiancing it, I was driving my 64 Goat
>Thorkle Rod ;;i wasn't much older ,,26 ,,had a new '69SS 396 Chevelle,,4 years outa the USAF ,,but joined the Alaska Air Nat'l guard as a Flight Engineer on a C-123 with jet pods on it's wings ,,only werked when they had a search n rescue mission ,,makin' good money runnin' a Union 76 gas station , ,,BUT ,,'69 rolled right over to '70,,i'd moved back home to Iowa ,,and the early '70's was alot like '69 ,,but with Led Zepplin,,Pink Floyd ,and,,,,, Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes were playin' at a local bar ,,:So's Your Mother" in Des Moines ,,i bought a signiture belt buckle from ole~ Ted ,,i still wear it today ,,Wackey Tobacky ,,Hash ,,Man,,those were some great times ,,if i could only remember em all ..
July 20, 1969 yeah, that moon landing deal was kinda neat, but ever since then all you ever heard was "well, if they can put a man on the moon..."
Watched the moon landing totally stoned; left the next week for a very short tour in Germany on the way to the Nam. Oh those long haired girls in Miniskirts. A weekend in Amsterdam was un real. 8 tracks with a reverb unit. Reel to reel tape decks. Conned the old man into buying a big block Charger just before I left. Cheap gas and burgers. Oh what a year.
Well, ya gotta admit that it's a tough trip from Oklahoma to NY in an old car. Hell, my wife & a bunch of hippies broke down 20 miles from home. It's all for the better, 'cause she's really claustrophobic.
You know ,,the Music back then ,well,,we went from the Beattles & Hermans Hermits in '64 to ,,Led Zepplin .n Pink Floyd ,,what a great music time it was ,,listening to that stuff brings back instant memories,,the car i was driving ,,the girl i was banging ,,,or was it the other way around ,,lol,,lol,,
DEEP PURPLE had their first number 1 hit in '67 called "HUSH"... Still love jammin' that one out at full blast (500 watts) in my car.
I got devorced in '71 ,,went to see "Deep Purple" with a little honey i picked up at the A&W drive in ,at the Des Moines' Vets Audiotorium ,,the three basketball floors were opened ,,and the stands ,,were plum full ,,the cops took all our booze as we went in ,,but ,,inside ,,bongs & joints were passed around ,,there was so much pot smoke ,,i couldn't see the stage from halfway across the B-Ball floor ,ya,,i had the cheap seats ,,lol,,the cops just looked the other way ,,and some even joined in ,,afterwords ,,over 10,000 people let out ,,got in their cars & left ,,,and ,,,the next day the Des Moines news reported ,,there were NO traffic accidents ,,none ,,i guess because we were All Driving Kinda ,,SLLOOOOOW,,heck ,,it took me 30 minutes to find the way home..LOL..LOL.LOL
YEP,,those were them there good ole` days ,,Nickle & Dime bags ,,$25 Bucks an O Z ,,for the good Columbian stuff too ! !!! the crap they're selling out there today is laced with so much shit ,,you don't dare smoke it ,,just gotta grow your own ,,HEY ,,in Alaska ,,Pot is Legal ,,up to an O Z on you is considered legal recreation stuff ,,Maybe we should all move to Alaska,,LOL,,LOL,,LOL,, we could all werk for BP pipe line ,,lol,,lol,
I had a 62 Ford Galaxie 500XL, 390 4 speed at the beginning of the year. At the end of the summer, I bought a 64 Fairlane sport coupe with the hipo 289 and 4 speed. What I remember best about being young was that everything was new and exciting. Everyday there was new music on the radio. I remember when the 4 track was replaced by the 8 track. Every night cruising up main, you might meet some new chick that could set you on fire. The muscle car wars were at full steam. Most areas had a drag strip. You went to dances with live bands not dj's. It was a great time to be young. The war and politics cast a long shadow everyday. Almost everyone from that era lost someone to the war. But in answer to the original question, the innocence of youth was what I remember best of 69.
Summer of 1969; up there in Anchorage ,we had a Drive In Resturant with car hops ,on top of the roof was a cubicle ,,every Fri & Sat evenings ,the disc jockey from our local rock n roll radio station would be up there ,transmitting all the kool music ,His last name was Byrd ,,,so we all called it ,"The Bird House" ,, ,plus ,he was a hot rodder ,and when you pulled in,,he would announce your arrival ,,,"Hey Folks ,,Here Comes Bill Conn in his brand new hugger orange SS 396 Chevelle" ,,so ,if you were across town ,you knew who was there ,,just by listening to your radio , 'bout midnite ,,he would shut down ,,and come into the parking lot ,,get in his '66 GTO and away we all went ,,north of town to our street racin' drag strip ,,a place on a Two Lane that had a observation lot for turrests to watch the whales in the ocean Inlet,,over a hundred cars would show up ,to a "Run Whatchu Brung" drag race ,,another hundred spectators ,,we'd race 'till morning ,,in the summer ,,it was daylite 24 hours a day ,,in the winter ,,it was dark 24 hours ,,yes we raced there all winter ,,the Alaska hi-way dept did a great job keeping those hi-ways clean n dry ,,I usually got home just in time to shower and change clothes and get to werk at the gas station at 8;00 AM ,, Sleep,,??? heck ,,when youre 22- 23 ,,and drag racin' ,you don't need no sleep ,,'sides ,,i had Sundays off ,,but then i took my drag truck to Polar Dragway and raced it all day ,, wish i had that much energy now ,,LOL,,LOL,,
WOW!!!! I was building Model HotRods and in the 1st Grade!!! I DIG the Memories of these pics...you all Rock!!! 36 years later I finally got my HotRod...
I was home from Fresno State for the summer. Landed a summer job at Bailey Manufacturing. Cruised Mooney Blvd during those warm summer nights and hung out at Foster's Freeze and Mearle's.(Visalia!) Living at the parent's again sucked, but they were "understanding." Still driving the '46 back then but lusting for something newer like a '69 Dodge Charger. Ditto what everybody else said about the music, Nam etc. There was a lot of turmoil coming. Didn't know what I was going to do after school, probably give up and join the Air Force, (they had a kick'in position as a graphic artist and map maker) turned out that I hit the Lotto (Selective Service lottery), but thanks to all you people that served, you certainly didn't deserve the non-welcome home that you got. People talk about Woodstock. F*** Woodstock! All of those people grew up to be the shit-for-brains Hippy-Fascists that are running the country. What do you think that CSN&Y meant with "Teach... your children well...?" Walter Cronkite turned out to be the biggest leftist propagandist ever. They will be coming for our Nitro next,(California leads the way!) "tooo much toxic waste in that exhaust and particulate matter in those smok'in 'hides." Can you tell that the afterglow on those "good ole days" memories has kinda faded?
The Jalopy Journal
