The "A" Story

Weave enough thin strands together and you can make a rope strong enough to bind. Threads of memory, filaments of  old family stories, strings of feeling stemming from the need to bring something good from the shadows of my childhood into the light of present day and from the desire to please my father and have something of his put away for the time when he's passed on,.. All these strands do indeed weave together to tie me tightly to my Model A's.

When I was a little bugger Dad had a '28 pickup that was just sort of a running rust bucket. I have a memory of one winter morning seeing him fill the radiator with hot water before he drove it through the snow to work. Our Jeep Wagoneer must have been broke down again. In another image I can see my brother hanging his feet out the tailgate of that truck as I stand in the back looking down through the topless cab past the open floor and watching the pavement rushing under Dad's feet as we drive down a hill near our house in Incline Village Lake Tahoe. As long as I lived at home that pickup lurked about, but never running. We played in it, abused it, revered it as some strangely valuable possession.

When I left Carson City for college the truck was under a tarp in the garage of the "McAmis house".

Dad had paid my tuition in college so when I'd married, had a son and finally rented a place with a garage I offered to repay him by restoring his Model A.

"You're not getting your hands on my Model A," was his curt response.

I assured him the car would be his, undriven, from the day I finished it until the day I drove him to the cemetery in it, but he wasn't biting. Yet, within a year he called and asked, "What do you want the title to read on this Model A I've got?"

"Same thing it's always read," I replied. "I don't want your car, I just want to .."

"No, this is a different one I got for you," he cut me off.

And a couple of months later he trailered down my '29 Special Coupe. It's a driver, with a shiny black spray job covering an original body and chassis. An absolute treasure. I've been driving the car for 23 years now. I've kept it running using an old book, phone calls to my dad, and trial and error. I love the look of the cowl through the windshield, the sound (of course), and the smell. I feel the car is mine in a very personal and intimate way. I know every nut and bolt and its every rattle and mannerism. I've never wanted to share it with anyone. Didn't want to be made to feel bad by a bunch of wealthy restorers who may subject it and me to snide snipes. Probably a very unfair prejudice, I know. I've been private and protective about the car just like I have been about our childhood.
Dad bought my brother a '31 pickup at about the same time he gave me the coupe. I guess he thought we'd all share them together, but mostly it was just me and Dad. My brother really likes stuff that goes fast. Just this past October my brother sold me his pickup. Because of Dad's old '28 I've always loved Model A pickups. So now I have a '28 and a pickup. Dad is working on his Model A a little bit in his shop. Mostly, I think, he's tearing it down. I don't know if he'll get it all back together, but it's an original and a family heirloom now.
I wouldn't qualify as a restorer, just a loving driver. It's not my hobby it's my lifestyle. Mayhap I'll pass that on to a younger one too.