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The show was part of the Fall Festival held in town each year to give local vendors a chance to hawk their wares. Performers also get to strut their stuff periodically throughout the day,...But the reason I show up each year is for the car show. Three blocks of Main Street were blocked off so participants could show their beauties to the admiring public..
This is a 1933 Ford 3-window coupe, and was clean enough to eat off of.. 350 Chevy V8 engine with air conditioning. Just another way of being cool while motoring in this super looking ride.
1949 Buick Roadmaster.. I haven't seen this car in any of the shows for a while, but it has been in the past. Multi-colored paint job demands your attention and those 4 port holes in the front fender would become a trademark for this model of Buick.
This is a 1940 Chevrolet, also with a 350 V8 engine. Check out the automatic transmission... a feature unheard of in 1940. The interior is also spectacular and I had to include it so you could be as impressed as I was. Note the Chevrolet emblem on the door panels.
1941 Ford Woodie.. In their time they were known as station wagons, but because of the real wood used on the sides they all became known as 'Woodies.' Thats the owner sitting behind it and I didn't want to get too close to check if it was real wood or a vinyl substitute. This particular car had the original 85 horsepower flathead V8 engine.
1961 Chevrolet Bel-Air with a super paint job. Most of the enthusiast of this year always go for the Impala, but I have always thought the Bel-Air was a better looking model.. and that goes for 1962 also. Under the hood this car featured a 348 engine to go along with the 4-speed transmission.
1963 and a half Ford fastback.. Ford introduced this model midway through the production year at the request of NASCAR. The vertical rear window was creating too much drag at high speeds and the sloped rear window eliminated that problem. This car had its original 406 cubic inch engine.
1930 Ford Model A Roadster and just about original in all aspects...down to the ooogah horn below the driver's side headlight. Check those authentic spoke wheels, painted bright orange to grab your attention. This one had the rumble seat and the upholstery job was simply super.
1937 Chevrolet Coupe and an excellent example of what a street rod is suppose to look like. The owner lives in Southern Oklahoma and has brought this car to our shows in the past, and we are the winners for it..The Chevy V8 powers this coupe down the highway with the best of them.. and needless to say, the interior is also immaculate.
1956 Pontiac Sport Coupe.. Really a clean example of that year and you can see the resemblance of the Chevrolet sister car in the lines along the side. If you look close you can see a small V8 emblem on the front fender....
A 389 cubic inch engine with two 4-barrel carburetors definitely did not come in this beauty in 1956. This is the engine that made the Pontiac GTO a terror on the streets in the mid and late 1960's. Note the generator instead of an alternator. Very clean car !
I'll close with this one... a 1923 Ford T-Bucket Roadster that always looks good.. and like most good Fords, it has a Chevy engine. Leaf spring front end is a good touch...as is the diamond-plate firewall behind the engine. This is a well presented car.
Nice clean interior showcasing the automatic transmission. I like the script "Hotrod" on the dash, just in case there was any question.
My brother's hotrods and race cars were always painted in his beloved 'Passion Purple' and I know he would have loved this roadster..
The weather was great for today's events.. The cloud cover kept us from being fried to a crisp and the temperature was around 80 degrees.. Now if we could only duplicate that in the future.. Thanks to all who brought their works-of-art out to be viewed. I wish I could have shown more, but time and space prevent it.
2016 Football Schedule
August 26 Denison 61 TCA of Addison 63 (0-1)
Sept 2 Frisco 34 Denison 21 (0-2)
Sept 9 Denison 14 Abilene Wylie 28 (0-3)
Sept 16 Frisco Heritage 60 Denison 64 (1-3)
Sept 23 Denison 34 Wichita Falls 15 (2-3) (1-0)
Sept 30 Open Date (No Game)
Oct 7 WF Rider 21 Denison 41 (3-3) (2-0)
Oct 14 Denison 20 Denton 21 (3-4) (2-1)
Oct 21 Braswell 20 Denison 49 (4-4) (3-1)
Oct 27 Denison 14 Denton Ryan 41 (4-5) (3-2)
Nov 4 Sherman 30 Denison 35 (5-5) (4-2)
* District 5 AAAAA Games:
Nov 11 Denison 29 Saginaw Boswell 56 (5-6)
(1st Round Playoff Game at Univ of North Texas Stadium)
As a young boy growing up in the 1940's I had plenty of heroes to look up to, but after reading a book on Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic Ocean, he went to the top of my list. I could easily have gone into aviation because of him, but poor eyesight and a heart murmur put an end to any flying career on my part.
Even in the 1960's I still carried an admiration for Lindbergh. In 1967 I visited the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC with the sole reason being a chance to see Lindbergh's plane, which has been on display there since 1928. I looked from one end of the museum to the other with no success. Finally I asked a security guard where the plane was and he simply pointed straight up. There it was,...suspended just about ten feet above my head.
C h a r l e s A. L i n d b e r g h
Man's first attempt to free himself from gravity's hold began just after the turn of the century in 1900. A couple of guys named Wright closed down their bicycle shop in Ohio to journey to a place in North Carolina where the wind always blew.. it was named Kitty Hawk. From that beginning man was always attempting to push the frontier of flying. By the time World War One broke out the airplane had become an instrument of conflict, able to not only bomb the enemy but to engagement him thousands of feet in the air in what became known as dog fights.
In the 1920's no plane had ever flown across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1926 New York hotel magnet Joseph Orteig offered a purse of $25,000 to anyone who could fly from New York to Paris, France. Many accepted the challenge, but by 1927 it was still just a dream.
French flying ace Rene Fonck attempted the feat but crashed on takeoff and barely survived with his life. Another French war hero, Captain Charles Nungesser, took off from Paris attempting to fly west to New York. Radio contact with Nungesser was lost over Iceland and he was never heard from again.
By the time Lindbergh was ready to make his attempt six aviators had lost their lives trying to achieve this feat and collect the 25 Gs. Lindbergh had put up one thousand dollars of his own money and borrowed another fifteen thousand from the State Bank of St Louis to build his plane. Ryan Flying Company of New York built the plane and wanted to put their own pilot in the plane until Lindbergh asserted his own plan.
He named the plane 'The Spirit of St Louis' to thank his financial backers for having faith in him. The Spirit carried a fuel tank of 450 gallons of very flammable aviation gas which weighed 2,710 pounds. Others attempting this flight had carried a navigator along with the pilot, but Lindbergh said he couldn't have the extra weight, so he flew solo. In the early hours of May 20, 1927 The Spirit fought off a muddy Roosevelt Field and just did clear the power lines at the end of the runway... He was on his way.
The flight took thirty-three and a half hours, and his only sound was the constant hum of the plane's J-5C radial engine. Lindy was having to adjust between three fuel tanks to keep them balanced and keep The Spirit on an even keel. To avoid storms and icing, he varied the altitude from ten thousand feet down to a mere ten feet above the black waters of the Atlantic. Using only a compass and dead reckoning, he made it. First across Ireland,..the English Channel,..and then the coastline of France.
Paris' LeBourget Airport was not even on the map Lindbergh was using, but he followed a steady stream of headlights to the air field where over 150,000 people turned out to welcome him to France. He landed at 10:22 on the night of May 21st. At that moment, the former air mail pilot had suddenly become world famous.
But the fame would also bring heartache. In 1932 the twenty month old son of Lindbergh would be kidnapped and held for ransom. A sum of ten thousand dollars was paid but six weeks later the body of Charles A. Lindbergh, Junior was found in a New Jersey ditch. Richard Hauptmann was found guilty of the crime and put to death. One month later the U.S. Congress passed the Lindbergh Law which makes kidnapping a federal crime.
Lindbergh would lose a lot of his esteem during the early years of World War II for his comments glorifying the German military and frequent visits to Berlin. In speeches he said Britain and France were outclassed by the Germans. He was also a prominent anti-war speaker here in America, but after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor he volunteered to President Roosevelt to help any way he could. He flew over fifty missions in the Pacific as a civilian consultant to the American war effort.
Lindbergh spent his latter years in the Hawaiian Islands. He died there August 26, 1974 and is buried near his home on Maui. The cause of death was lymphoma. His headstone has only his name and the dates of his birth and death.
To post anything else on this day would be a travesty... This is the single most important day of the 20th century and should be drilled in school so future Americans will never forget it. I may be a little more hardcore than most, but I had a father and six uncles who fought in World War II. I am among those who stand in total admiration of this 'greatest generation of Americans.'
The late 1930's and early 1940's were some of the gloomiest days in world history. Germany, Italy, and Japan had created an Axis of Evil that tried to dominate the entire world. Beginning in 1942 the allied countries started to battle back, but it was a slow process.
Japan ruled most of Southeast Asia...Italy was a power over North Africa..and the Germans dominated most of western Europe.
Everyone knew an invasion was coming,...but the Germans thought it would come in the region around Calais, France. There a mere 28 miles separate England from France, and it is the most direct way to Paris and Berlin. The allies conducted one of the most secret and deceptive operations in history when they decided on the beaches of Normandy. Over six thousand ships would transport 125,000 combat troops the one-hundred miles to Normandy under the cover of darkness and begin the invasion on a Tuesday morning, June 6, 1944.
Actually the assault began the night before. Overall Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower met with paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division to wish them well and told them 'to kick some ass' until the invasion forces could re-enforce them.
The invasion beaches between Cherbourge and LeHavre would be divided into five fronts.. Gold, Sword, Juno, Omaha, and Utah were the secret code names for the beaches. Gold would find Australian and Norwegian troops coming ashore. Sword and Juno would be the responsibility of English and Canadian forces, and American assault troops would storm ashore at Utah and Omaha beaches.
The 101st Airborne Division and the 82nd Airborne Division would drop behind Utah and Omaha beaches and keep German reinforcement troops from reaching the beach emplacements.
While the airborne troops began their actions around 1:30 in the morning of June 6th, the invasion forces assault on the beaches began at 6:30. The German's had concrete fortifications for artillery and machine gun emplacements and the initial allied forces took a heavy toll in casualties. By eleven o' clock that morning they had broken through the wall and began the massive push eastward. Because of the uncertainty of where the invasion would occur, the Germans held back their armored units until the last moment. It would be a fatal mistake.
Most of the German armor losses came at the hands of Allied aircraft as over thirteen thousand American and British planes ruled the battlefield. Infantry units would be forced to deal with the German tanks with bazookas, satchel charges, and hand grenades. After capturing the port city of Cherbourg, supplies started to come ashore quickly supplying the combat troops more ammunition, food, and reinforcements.
It would be a town to town, city to city, push all the way across France, Belgium, and into Germany. The famed German Luftwaffe was a no-show in the Normandy Campaign as they were forced into a defensive posture around the capital city of Berlin. On April 29, 1945 Adolf Hitler committed suicide and Germany surrendered to end the European conflict. Four months later two atomic bombs dropped on Japan ended the Pacific conflict.
Growing up in a free country, we have no idea what it was like to have no freedom of religion...no freedom of speech...no freedom to work any place you chose...no freedom to criticize our form of government. Remember that you have those freedoms because someone paid the price for you..
This is only one of many cemeteries across France, Belgium, and Norway. On the first day of the invasion of Normandy, America lost over ten thousand troops. At one time the battle was going so badly American General Omar Bradley considered abandoning the invasion and calling for ships to recall the troops. Luckily, the tide turned within the hour and success was ours. If you have a member of your family that was lost in World War II, you have my deepest sympathy...but you also have my thanks for the great effort it took to battle the world's most advanced forces at the time. The World War II generation is now dieing off at the rate of one-thousand per day. The next time you meet one of these gallant men or women, give them a smile and thank them for giving you all that you have today..
If you have been exposed to my blog in the past, you know I am a Dallas Cowboy fan from way back.... back to 1960 as a matter of fact, the year the team came into existence.
Thanks to a season that saw them win four games and lose 12, the Cowboys had the fourth overall pick in the annual NFL College Draft held April 28th, 29th, and 30th in the city of Cleveland, Ohio.
I have been one of the advocates of drafting a quarterback in the first round with that valued pick, BUT it was not to be. Jared Goff of UCLA went to the Los Angeles Rams and Carson Wendt of North Dakota State were picked by the Philadelphia Eagles.
When it rolled around to Dallas at number four I held my breath as the NFL Commissioner said, "With the fourth pick of the NFL draft, the Dallas Cowboys select Ezekiel Elliott, running back from Ohio State"....
Wow!.. I was expecting help at either quarterback or maybe somewhere in the defense,.. defensive end or maybe cornerback.. but running back?.. Didn't they just sign Alfred Morris away from the Washington Redskins?
But that is not to cast any doubt on Zeke... He will be running the ball behind the best offensive line in all of the NFL. He is six feet tall and weighs in at 225 pounds.. He is also a second generation Buckeye as his father, Stacy, also played for O.S.U. It was obvious he was one of the top players in the draft, and already they are forecasting ALL-Pro and Rookie of the Year honors for him. Zeke was the 2015 Big Ten Conference player of the year with 1800 yards rushing and 23 touchdowns running the ball. He is an excellent receiver out of the backfield and loves to block for his quarterback. In the Fiesta Bowl game against Notre Dame he ran for 149 yards and scored four touchdowns to cap off his college career. Most NFL scouts rated him as excellent in all catagories.. Welcome to Texas, Zeke !!
In the second round of the NFL draft the Cowboys surprised most experts when they picked Notre Dame linebacker Jaylon Smith with the 34th overall selection..
Smith is six foot two..and tips the scales at 223 pounds. He is the 2015 winner of the Dick Butkus Award that goes to the top linebacker in all of college football.. The surprise is that Smith was hurt in the last game of his college career and required major knee surgery. The operation was performed by the physicians of the Dallas Cowboys and that might have been what tipped them off to his return date. Before the injury some were calling him the top pick in the entire draft. The ACL operation went well, but it is the LCL operation for nerve damage that will require some time to heal. With good results, he could be a star for the Dallas defense for years to come...but if it doesn't heal properly, he could never play a down in the NFL.
In the 3rd round of the draft, Dallas went for help in the interior of the defensive line...
Maliek Collins ( #7 in red and white) of the Nebraska Cornhuskers is six foot two inches tall and weighs 300 pounds.. He is a junior that will forego his senior season to play professional football. He emerged as a dominant presence on the defensive line in both 2014 and 2015,... so much so that he was named as a two-time selection to the All Big-Ten Team. Collins started every game in 2015 and finished his college career with 8 quarterback sacks, 23 tackles for a loss in yardage, along with 19 qb 'hurries.' Twice he was named to the All Big-Ten Academic Team and was one of the team captains for the Cornhuskers.
The Cowboys had two selections in the fourth round of the NFL draft and Dallas fans are going to love both of them..
Looking to shore up that defensive line and to put more pressure on opposing quarterbacks, Dallas picked defensive end Charles Tapper of the University of Oklahoma...
Tapper is six foot three and weighs in at 271 pounds and is refereed to as the 'Trap Machine' by his teammates at Norman, Oklahoma.. He did not even play football before his junior year in high school, but has exploded since. He was a mainstay for OU's defensive line with over 15 sacks in the last three seasons. At the NFL combine he caught a lot of scouts attention when he ran a 4.59 time in the 40 yard dash. When he got the news about being drafted by Dallas his first response was, " I can't wait to be a Cowboy."
Later in the fourth round Dallas finally got around to drafting the quarterback they need to back up and learn from Tony Romo.
Dak Prescott of Mississippi State is six foot two and 226 pounds.. He becomes the first quarterback drafted by Dallas since Quincy Carter in 2001 and Stephen McGee in 2009. Prescott already has his Masters Degree and has met with the Cowboys coaching staff 4 times in the last 3 months. QB Coach Wade Wilson of Dallas even went to Starkville, Mississippi for a private workout with Prescott. When asked to compare himself with current qb Tony Romo, Prescott said, " We are both winners." He and his family have always been Dallas Cowboy fans !!
Dallas did not have a pick in the fifth round of the draft, but they did have four selections in the sixth round. With the first one they pulled another surprise when they went for a player from Baylor University.... a basketball player !
Rico Gathers is 6'8" and weighs 275 pounds... He plays power forward for the Bears and has been compared to Wes Unseld of the Baltimore Bullets of old.. He has not played football since middle school, BUT has worked out for the Cowboys numerous times in the last couple of months. He compares himself to Jimmy Graham of the Seattle Seahawks, who also played basketball before coming to the NFL. Dallas projects Gathers to be a tight end because of his size, speed, and good hands. Might be just the player to fit in when Jason Witten calls it a career.
With two defensive line players selected, Dallas now turned to the secondary.. and they looked again to the midwest in search of a safety.
Kavon Frazier of Central Michigan was a four-year starter for the Chippewas... He stands 6 foot and weighs in at 217 pounds. NFL scouts say he has good stop/start quickness and is described as a 'beast' on special teams. He was the conference player of the week after his 13 tackle effort against the Oklahoma State Cowboys on September 3rd, 2015. Dallas Coaches say he reminds them a lot of Barry Church, the current safety for Dallas.
With the inconsistent player of both current cornerbacks for Dallas, the Cowboys went looking for help there also..
Anthony Brown of Purdue was selected by the Cowboys...He is 5'11" and 195... He played in all 12 games for the Boilermakers in each of the past three seasons.. As a senior, his 59 tackles and 4 interceptions earned Brown honorable mention on the All Big-Ten Team.
And... if Ezekiel Elliott does not pan out at the running back spot for Dallas (fat chance),..they used their final selection to pick Darius Jackson of Eastern Michigan.
Jackson is six foot one and graces the scales at 221 pounds.. He caught everyone's attention at the NFL Pro Day when he posted a 4.35 time in the 40 yard dash, a 41 inch vertical jump, and a broad jump of 133 inches. Jackson also set a school single season record by running for 1,089 yards and scoring 16 touchdowns. He will have to show a lot at training camp as Dallas is suddenly very heavy at the running back position...
It might be a little early to judge the merits of this draft by Dallas, but after a couple of Miller Lite's and a little thought... this could be a very good draft for the Cowboys...
... but again I probably said the same thing last year at this time...
By now you are aware that I have a fondness for old cars...especially old cars that have been reconditioned and are even more gorgeous now than when they rolled off the assembly line..
There was a car show in Denison this past Saturday and my wife and I made it a 'must' stop on the way home from eating out..
The first to attract my attention was this 1933 Ford 3-window coupe...
This was truly one of the more impressive cars on display.. The flamed paint job was without a flaw and the interior really set off a fine ride.. Hot Rod lore will always pay homage to the 1932 Ford but I have always been partial to the '33 and '34 models.
This is a 1938 Chevrolet Coupe and was also impressive in its overall appearance. Usually its the 1939, 40, and 41 Chevys that get all of the attention, but that is not to disregard the 1937 and '38 Chevys, which were also great looking too.
This is the interior of the '38 coupe.. That dash shows a lot of thought and planning.. Nice looking bucket seats with automatic transmission...
Here is one you don't see every day... It is a 1938 Pontiac Coupe..and the paint job was suburb.. It was a deep cinnamon bronze color and it was applied expertly with no drips or orange peel...
The inside of the Pontiac was just as gorgeous as the outside..and check the door panels with Chief Pontiac's profile etched out..
Previous postings will attest that I had a 1947 Chevrolet coupe in my high school days...Well here is a '47 Chevy coupe and mine was nowhere as outstanding as this one..
Note the 'frenched' headlights and taillights on this particular coupe... My photo does not do the paint justice as it was more of an orangey-red than what it looks like.. Without handles on the doors or on the trunk, how does one gain entrance?? Solenoids in the proper place allow a quick opening.. Neat huh?
If racing is your thing,.. how about this 1973 Chevy Nova...It is outfitted with a complete roll-cage inside to comply with the Pro-Stock rules.. The pressurized fuel tank and two-battery electrical system fills out the trunk and a big block V8 is under the hood..
Look out !! Here comes a 1967 Buick Rivera...and check that large mouth carburetor sticking out from under the hood...
This obviously is not a factory color but it sure demands your attention.. The Rivera's were overlooked by a lot of enthusiasts in the 1960's but this is an example of how futuristic they looked..
Don't let the '32 grille fool you... This is a 1927 Ford Model T with the stock height on the top.. Just to the left of the grille note the disc brakes on all four corners.. About a 3 inch dropped front axle with a custom made hood to cover an up to date V8 engine.
This is the interior of the '27 Model T... I love the simplicity of the dash, and the use of maroon piping about the seats, windows, and carpeting.. Just a great example of American car enthusiasts following thru on Henry Ford's great product..
If you said 1939 Cadillac LaSalle... Go to the head of the class! This is a local car and in a lot of area's car shows. It belongs to a woman and features a Chevy 409 cubic inch engine under the hood..
1939 Chevrolet 2-door sedan... Great sungold paint job that demands you check it out... Really nice all-around rod,..and I like that he left the running boards on the sides of the car..
1930 Ford Model A 2-door sedan.. Really a nice looking street rod and clean as a pin... I am not one who likes the color yellow but it does jump out at you and stands out from the crowd..
1950 Cadillac Convertible... Really a well preserved car... It had the same owner for 50 years before being purchased by a member of the Corvette Club and brought to Texas from back east.. Love those gangster whitewall tires...
1955 Chevrolet Bel-Air 2-door sedan... The owner went for a two-tone look of silver and bronze...and it looks like a million bucks..
See what I mean?? He left the car basically stock,..but when it looks this good right from the factory,..what are you gonna do to improve it? Dynamite looking Chevy !
1940 Ford Deluxe convertible... When I was a younger this is the car that every guy in high school wanted,...and that was 50 years ago.. Like a beautiful woman, a great looking car never goes out of style.. The 1939 and '40 Fords look very similar, but when you move up to the Deluxe model..they really are impressive..
I'll close with this one... A 1963 Austin Healey 3000 made in England.. This one still has the Austin 6-cylinder engine in it and is in great shape.. They are getting hard to come by and sellers are getting about two or three times what they sold for originally.. Because of the difficulty in securing parts for these cars a lot of guys just installed small block Chevy V8s in them.
I couldn't get a shot of every car in the show but I do appreciate everyone coming out today.. The weather cooperated nicely and the parking lot of the middle school is a lot better facility than the muddy park where the shows are usually held.. Thanks again for giving the public a chance to see some really great cars !!
