August
3, 2002
One evening, about a week after I had sent
Alan (the paint and body guy) the
photo of the original paint scheme on the tailgate, he called me at home to say that Maych
was finished. He said I could pick him up anytime, but not to
wait too long because he was nervous that Maych would
get scratched sitting around the shop. He said to give him a
couple of days notice and he would have him all washed and ready to
go. I told Alan I would call him in a day or two and let him
know when I was coming down.
I couldn't give Alan a firm date at
the time he called because Maych wasn't
"road ready" -- he didn't have bumpers, taillights, or inner
fenders. A friend of mine, Dave, offered the loan of his trailer
and his help to go get Maych and I needed to check with
him before I gave Alan a firm date. Dave is the same guy that
went with me when I first looked at Maych,
so I suspected he agreed to help me pick up Maych
because he was curious to see how he looked with a new
paint job. I talked with Dave the next day and he said he was
free for the upcoming weekend. On Wednesday evening, I called
Alan and said we be there Saturday morning about 10:00 o'clock.
When Dave and I drove up to Alan's
shop on Saturday morning,
the atmos- phere around the shop reminded me of those occasions when
someone is going off to college or military service. Alan was
there, along with his wife and kids. Even the dog was there,
sensing something was up. Alan's wife gave me a couple of
pictures of Maych she had taken the day before.
Alan had rolled out his restored 1965 Mustang to sit beside Maych
when she took the pictures, so it was kind of like a family
portrait. Spooky.
After chewing the fat for a while,
Alan backed Maych out of the shop while Dave prepared
the trailer. I decided to let Alan drive Maych up on the
trailer, figuring that if he damaged it, he'd have to fix
it. Also, with the bench seat removed, I wasn't too
thrilled about sitting on a five gallon bucket will trying to get Maych
on the trailer. In short, I wasn't the best one for this job
because I would tend to be too careful. It has been my experience
that the more careful you try to be, the more you are prone to accidents
and mishaps.
You'll notice in the above photos
that Dave's tow vehicle is a rare 50th Anniversary, 1968 Chevy
C-10. This combo turned a lot of heads on the trip back to
Dave's place. Maych proved to be quite a load for
Dave's small block 327. Before we got back to Dave's, his pickup
was running a little warm and was clattering quite a bit. He
said he thought the timing was a bit off and he would need to look at
it before he hauled anything else. Other than the strain on his
engine, nothing bad of major importance happened on the trip back to
Dave's. We did stop once to re-tighten the chain binders.
By the time we arrived at Dave's I was feeling confident enough to
back Maych off the trailer and pull him into Dave's
garage. The 5 gallon bucket I used for a seat was better than
nothing, but only barely.
We towed Maych to
Dave's place because my wife and I are temporarily living in an
apartment with no garage and our retirement house in Grand Island has
only a one-car garage at the present. Actually, the garage is
big enough for two cars but the current garage door is only wide
enough for one car - go figure. My plans are to replace the
current door with a two-car model and then drive Maych
to his new home sometime around December. In the meantime, Maych
is safely tucked away in Dave's garage and we can begin putting him
back together for the trip to his new home.
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