Goodbye Old Friend

It should be noted that this blogpost was written for another site in 2013 and was thought to have been lost to these interwebs forever. I was lucky enough to have found it and with a bit of doctoring, this olelongrooffan was able to bring it back. Hope you appreciate as I do.
 

This olelongrooffan has previously shared some of the vehicles my family and I have owned over the years. But one of the most beloved vehicles was the one my older brother, Bus-Plunge, owned for over twenty years. I am, of course referring to the short bus that has played an important role in not just Bus-Plunge’s life but his kids, grandkids, family members and friends.

Every year at Christmas time, Bus-Plunge, on the far right standing behind my Mom, would gather up whoever wanted to go for a ride and tour around the Queen City of the Ozarks and check out all the Christmas lights and decorations. In the image above, that is my Dad, TheGentlemanFarmer on the far left, Bus-Plunge’s PrvtRN is in the white slacks and Mom is on the far right. The dude with the pipe is the neighbor who went with Bus-Plunge to Colorado to retrieve that old Willy’s thejeepjunkie got running while this olelongrooffan was on my epic road trip.

Now that shorty bus is not the only oddball unique vehicle that has ever resided in Bus-Plunge’s driveway. He has this cool ass old Airstream that he and lovely wife put to great use. He currently has a later model Suburban to haul it around though. Last summer they had a great road trip through Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois and southern Missouri and this olelongrooffan would have loved to been along on that sightseeing trip.

Back when the Bus-Plunge made a living owning several “joints” in the carnival industry these are the trucks he and his Hooned up and down the highway in up there in the great state of Iowa.

One summer this olelongrooffan worked for them and drove this C-30 box truck towing a 24′ enclosed trailer. Yeah, I was all of sixteen years old that eventful summer and still remember it like it was yesterday. Fun, but loads of windshield time.

Meanwhile, Bus-Plunge piloted this bobtail towing a 32′ skeeball enclosed trailer while his PrvtRN drove his big ass blue one ton towing their huge house trailer. Yeah that summer was fun but after the kids started school, they decided to liquidate their stuff and live a more conventional lifestyle.

Conventional, that is, if you consider owning one of these three wheeled Cushmans as conventional. Which of course Bus-Plunge does.

Soon he decided to get into all things air cooled. The only time this olelongrooffan saw his Volkwagen Thing it was painted white. A few years later I got a copy of this photo and wasn’t surprised to see it was painted camo. My fellow Hoons will see why this olelongrooffan wasn’t surprised just aways down.

Yeah, he got into VDubs in a huge way. Not seen in this photo are the other two Buses he owned along with a handful of Type I Bugs. That boy in this photo? His name is LilJim. He is now pushing 40, has a burgeoning family and Hoons around in a M880. These days this olelongrooffan refers to him as NotSoLilJim. Yeah, as far as vehicles go, like father like son.

A little later Bus-Plunge picked up this cherry Porsche 911 to Hoon around with his lovely wife. He sold this when NotSoLilJim turned 16 and has never regretted that decision.

And Bus-Plunge doesn’t do things in a minor, tepid way. No Siree. He jumps in with both feet. After he tired of adjusted valves on a daily basis on his air-cooled livery, he unloaded all of them and picked up more than a few military vehicles. To his credit, they were put to use.

Yeah, a big way. Not just late model ambulances but this jeepy thing as well. And that trailer out back, damn straight Bus-Plunge had to have one even if he had to drive several hours there and back to get it.

. And, of course, for Bus-Plunge, one ambulance is not enough, let’s get another.

Well, after his lovely wife denied him the authority to purchase an old car transporter truck and trailer to haul his cache of military vehicles around he decided to liquidate yet another collection of cool trucks and pick up this Stovebolt 5 ton to match his shorty bus.

Yes, back to the bus. A year or so ago, Bus-Plunge was contacted by an advertising agency about the possibility of using the short bus in a McDonald’s commercial up in Chicago. He kept putting them off and they kept raising his compensation until finally Bus-Plunge gave in and loaded that shorty bus on thehorsefarmer’s trailer and put his grandsons in his newish Burban and headed off to Chicago for that filming.

They even got Bus-Plunge a uniform to wear while driving that bus. The commercial was destined for broadcast over in jolly old England so Rust-My-Enemy, keep your eye out for it.

Well, as Bus-Plunge ages, he, like many do, has decided to liquidate a bunch of his stuff. And as the short bus was driven less than 100 miles last year and less than 125 miles the previous year, he decided to put it up on the List that is Craigs and see what he could get for it. I did a little Hemmings type research and mentioned to Bus-Plunge the value of that bus. He was quite surprised as he was thinking it was worth less than half the amount this olelongrooffan expressed.

Well, it turns out that a grandfather down Texas way was on the lookout for a bus just like this to tote his grandkids to school, Hoon around bar hopping with a bunch of friends, use it in parades and general stuff like that. Which is exactly the same use for it Bus-Plunge had over the years. Hell, sixteen of us rode in it to my Mom’s funeral a whiles back. She loved the bus by the way.

Well, Bus-Plunge and that grandpa struck a deal and on Saturday morning one of the truck drivers who works for grandpa showed up to pick up that short bus and take it to its new home. That is NotSoLilJim in the yellow jacket.

All loaded up and off to make some grandkids very happy and provide a ton of memories for a whole damn bunch of other folks.

A final handshake as Bus-Plunge and the driver exchange goodbyes and the short bus rode off into the distance.

And as Bus-Plunge put it, “We had a blast with it over the past twenty years but it was now time to turn it loose and let someone else have fun with it.”

Oh yeah, that 1954 shorty school bus sold for $16,000.00. Yeah, Bus-Plunge was surprised as hell about that.

This olelongrooffan calls that “Well Sold.”

Image Copyright 2013/longrooffan

The 79th Indianapolis 500 or Ed and John Get Comped

Initially Posted Memorial Day 2014 on Hooniverse.com

So this olelongrooffan has been somewhat Hoonisilent this past month or so. Ever since relocating here to FantasyLand and hanging out in the toney community where I earn a buck or two, my motivation for posting all things Hoon has been somewhat lacking. Yeah, I know, I’m a Slacker but how many times can this olelongrooffan do a post about a ubiquitous Maserati? However, as a means of attempting to motivate this olelongrooffan into sharing some stuff with my fellow Hoons, I backtracked and checked out some of my previous posts and, as a result, the comments on those posts. It was on one of them about some of the forgotten images I had gathered and my, presumed, switch from a HP product to that fruit so forbidden to Adam and Eve and it was in the comment section of that post that fellow Hoon Hycospeed left the following: "Olelongroof, I could give two shits what computer, software, smoke signal generator, whatever, that you use, just as long as you keep sharing your adventures and stories with us! I am with you, certain cars, certain car sights, certain car smells, can instantly bring back memories of people now gone, and to me that is one of the awesome things about old cars and old stuff, the ability for it to connect you to a person, a memory, and help keep them alive in your heart." Thanks Hycospeed.

Well Hoons, it was that comment which provides the motivation for this olelongrooffan to share with all ya’all a brief tale about the 1995 Indianapolis 500 and thejeepjunkie and this olelongrooffan’s attendance at it. Appropriately enough this Indy 500 Sunday nearly 20 years later. I relocated from the Queen City of the Ozarks to Fantasyland in 1988. thejeepjunkie, thesungoddess, the Kid and the Kid’s yet to be born Sister relocated from Joplin, Missouri (yes that Joplin) to Fort Lauderdale in the early 90’s. thejeepjunkie was able to finagle a transfer from a corporate store up there to another corporate store on the other coast. He was so successful at selling those yellow shocks in his new location that in 1995 Monroe offered him an all expense paid trip for two to the Indianapolis 500. Of course, thesungoddess wanted nothing to do with this adventure so this olelongrooffan was the lucky recipient of that second undesirable ticket to the The Greatest Spectacle in Motorsports.

It was at that race that I acquired the above shown T-shirt, one of the few I own other than free ones I got from Chevrolet out at the Daytona International Speedway and the Hooniverse T’s the Missus sends my way pretty much any time I ask for one. Do any of my fellow Hoons own a nearly new 19 year old t-shirt?

So that fateful Memorial Day weekend Saturday morning in 1995, this olelongrooffan left my 3 month old daughter and her Mom and jumped in my not quite pink Fleetwood D’Elegance and sped across Alligator Alley to gather up thejeepjunkie and head out to the Fort Lauderdale International Airport, just off Eisenhower’s Interstate 595 to check our bags and hitchhike a ride to St. Pete to catch that charter heading to the my Holy Grail, the Indy 500.

That 30 minute flight landed us in St. Pete at 9:30 that morning. Without the need to gather up our luggage, thejeepjunkie looks at me and asks, “What’s up?” My response? “Let’s see if the bar is open.” And it was. We headed on in, ordered us up some frosty beverages and commenced to having a good ole Lee boy time. Slowly that morning the bar began filling up and by the time our flight was called, it was full. At that announcement over the PA system, everybody in that bar called for our tabs and the entire bar emptied out and the entirety of its occupants headed down to get on that plane to Indy. Needless to say that was a rowdy, yet fun filled flight to Indianapolis.

Upon arrival in Indy, our plane was directed to an area removed from the terminal where there were several buses waiting to transport us to our hotel. I asked thejeepjunkie which bus we were getting on? “Let me check,” was his response. He set off down that row of buses stopping off in each one and the coming back out to head down to the next one. When he entered the last bus he entered that afternoon, he shouted, “It’s this one longroof.” I headed down to that bus and climbed aboard. thejeepjunkie was settled into the second row of seats and gave me the window seat. I asked him how he knew this was the correct bus? “It’s the one with Bud Lights in the cooler.” Makes sense to this olelongrooffan.

So we got to the hotel and got our room cards at the check in table and feasted on a few sammichs and a few more cold carbonated beverages. We inquired about our luggage and were informed it was already in our room. Yeah, we were flying high that day. Not to bad for a couple boys from the Ozark Mountains. That evening we went out for a bite to eat and ran into a couple buddies from Indiana, Pennsylvania and had a grand ole time. I think the cab was the most coin we spent that night.

So, the next morning we climbed aboard that bus, yeah, the Bud Lights had been replenished, and they dropped us a ten block walk from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Now, my fellow Hoons, that trek to the Speedway was unlike any other this olelongrooffan had yet been on. The Speedway is not located in the swankiest part of Speedway, Indiana and there was one home just outside the entrance that possessed a sign encouraging passersby to toss their empty aluminum cans in its fenced yard. And we did. Upon leaving several hours later, that yard was two feet deep in aluminum cans. Just one entrepreneur’s way to make a buck off the event held just across the street.

We were then directed to our seats just at the start of the front straightaway with turn 4 in sight just to our left. After we settled in, thejeepjunkie commented on the lack of beer vendors in our area. It was then we noticed that nearly everyone, except those of us who were Indy 500 virgins, had a jumbo cooler filled with cold carbonated beverages.

Well, thejeepjunkie and this olelongrooffan headed down to the vending station and spent a not small amount of folding and gathered us up a just few cold beverages emanating from the city with the Arch and returned to our seats. We got to see the start of the race and it was on the first lap over on the out of sight turn 2 that Stan Fox unfortunately suffered a career ending head injury after slamming into the outside wall. Now, he lives on and all is good but, damn, that clean up took some time.

Meanwhile, thejeepjunkie and I decided to head into the infield to see what could be seen. Well we caught some of the garages, the pits and stumbled upon the staging area for the sky boxes high above. Under one of those skyboxes was an unattended utility bed golf cart laden with an uncountable number of chilled 12 packs of thejeepjunkie’s favorite beverage. He and I looked at each other, started laughing and we each grabbed one in each hand and beat it the hell out of Dodge.

Well, needless to say, upon our return to our seats, we were the most popular guys of all of those dudes wearing their free Monroe Shocks hats. So by this time the race had gone green and we observed a great number of laps of full speed racing while enjoying our ill gotten refreshments.

Alas. soon, however, our beverages were depleted and we contemplated heading back to the infield to see if we could pull off a round two of our experience.

It was thejeepjunkie who noted that in the next section over in the aisle seats were two totally trashed, to the point of passing out, dudes with an empty cooler in front of one of them and a nearly full cooler in front of the other. Well, Hoons, thejeepjunkie being who he is, stood up and walked the short distance to that nearly full cooler and grabbed us a couple cold beverages out of it. And they were Bud Lights. It was hilarious and everyone around us started laughing their asses off. One of the drunk dudes woke up at all of the laughter, looked around and promptly passed out again. Yeah, they slept through the sounds of 20+ Indy cars passing by at full speed but woke up to the sound of laughter coming from the crowd. And we tried our best to empty those passed out dudes' cooler.

Well, needless to say, by the end of the race that Jacque Villenue won in only his second start, thejeepjunkie and this olelongrooffan were pretty inebriated and totally Indy Car Racing satisfied.

And as I have said previously, a visit to the track is not all about race cars. Even the guy in that golf cart my buddy, TheGoodAttorney, spent an afternoon chasing around a football field years ago seems to agree.

Yeah, thejeepjunkie has hooked this olelongrooffan up pretty good over the years and this one is one of the more memorable.

But having said that, much like the Daytona 500, the experience is not to be missed if you have the opportunity but the best place to watch the Indianapolis 500 is from your living room, something this olelongrooffan is going to do right this moment.

On The Backroads Of My Home

So I know, it's been a whiles since this olelongrooffan has contributed anything here in the Hooniverse. Just under four years ago upon arriving here in the Music Capital of the World after my Unexpected Road Trip adventure, a series of posts made their way here about some of the automotive goings on around these here Ozarks. After some time, I thought my fellow Hoons may have grown weary of this olelongrooffan and I decided to allocate more of my time cruising the Backroads of My Home and checking out some of the natural beauty of the Ozarks I remembered from my bygone youth.

I've spent a good part of the last couple years wandering the woods and rivers round these here parts evaluating just what this olelongrooffan is gonna do once the big sixoh arrives this fall. Now don't think this olelongrooffan was all Jerimiah Johnson during that time, I also sorted through a bunch of old photos that had arrived in my possession over the years. I thought some of those old school photos may be appreciated by some of my fellow Hoons here in the Hooniverse.

While I was adrift in the wilderness, this olelongrooffan inadvertently forfeited my esteemed position on the Hooniverse Tips email list and, more importantly, my place as a contributor to the New and Improved Hooniverse page. Initially, I thought that Hooniverse had matured beyond this olelongrooffan's ramblings and that the Hooniverse Overlords had determined this was just the case.  However, after seeing the revered Gianni Hirsch has reentered the Hooniverse empire from the bogs near his home, I thought there might still be some room here for some of my discourse. That occurrence, in addition to the abundance of posts around these here webs about recreational vehicles lately, has gotten this olelongrooffan excited about the possibility of contributing, albeit on a guest contributor basis, here in the Hooniverse once again. That and the comments contained within this post provided me the encouragement to get back in my imaginary racing suit and return to that rambling race track that seems to be this olelongrooffan's one claim to fame.

Anyways...

It was the discovery of one of those old school photographs that prompted my thoughts for this post here in the Hooniverse. I hope my fellow Hoons enjoy and won't be all that upset should this olelongrooffan end up wandering around a bit as usual.

Now this olelongrooffan stated outright in my first post here in the Hooniverse (April, 2010) that most of my posts would be of a personal experience nature and most things technical would be like the joke about the roof, you know, over my head. The loverly Amber Rust was so kind as to comment that this would be okie-dokie with her as there are plenty of technical posts to go around and it would be nice to have a change up once in awhile. Still Missing You Amber.

This olelongrooffan has been collecting random images of pretty much anything automotive for a damn long time. In fact, I have 5,000+ images on several thumb drives and crashed laptops in my possession. I have gathered these merely because I found the subject matter intriguing. Luckily for this olelongrooffan, several of my fellow Hoons seem to find them interesting as well. It is amusing to me (it doesn't take much) that I can remember the location and usually the timeframe each of these images was gathered. Don't dare ask this olelongrooffan the last time the 7l0 was changed in my longerroof though. Luckily, there is a sticker affixed to the windscreen that reminds me when that was.

For example, the above image was gathered at the Fall, 2015 Branson Collector Car Auction. That Autorama Corvair longroof was featured at the Detroit 2013 Ridler's Ball and the SEMA show that year as well. Of course, per the usual course of things for this olelongrooffan, I was clueless to that fact prior to capturing this image, I just thought that longroof was cool.

And that classic Cadillac would be a welcome addition to this olelongrooffan's livery every day and night. It would be perfect for shuttling my visiting fellow Hoons up and down the 76 Strip here in the Ozark Mountains I now call home. Or a long Road Trip on nearby Route 66.

Most of the subjects of the images this olelongrooffan gathers lately are of a static nature as I am not as quick on the draw with my elcheapo daily driver image taker as I used to be. However, once in a while an image worthy of V.I.S.I.T. is captured.

This Mercedes Benz SLC was captured at the off/on ramp area of US 65 and Highway 76 here in my newish hometown. I was able to grab this one as I was stopped at a left turn light and saw this wondercar exit that Casey's General Store in time to gather up my image taker and get this shot. I especially like this image as it caught that old Benz in motion. Even the infamous Charles Barrett commented on the coolness of this image when this olelongrooffan posted it in the V.I.S.I.T. section over on that Book about my Face. Hey Charles...glad you are still healthy, wealthy and wise.

So while this olelongrooffan was wandering out and about in the countryside and the mountains, one of the things I got to thinking about was my propensity to gather these type of images, almost to the extreme. I spent an inordinate amount of time considering what trait motivated me to gather these type of images. It was no surprise to this olelongrooffan to realize it is in my bloodlines.

After all, most of the males in my immediate family are into cars and trucks in one way or another. My oldest big brother Bob (BBB) doesn't share a lot over these webs but he has a John Deere lawn tractor for his postage stamp lawn. He and my younger brother Ed, thejeepsjunkie, horse traded that go cart formerly belonging to Ed's son, theKid, for God only knows what but this olelongrooffan is certain the conditions of that trade are dubious at best.

And every fall, my older brother Jim, aka Bus_Plunge, gathers up his wife, the PrvtRN, and together they cruise out west with their current tow vehicle of choice, usually a 3/4 ton Suburban, toting their vintage Airstream of choice. During these travels Bus_Plunge also captures images of old cars and trucks just for shits and grins. He used to post them over on his blog but he tired of blogging after ten years or so and now selectively shares them on that Book about his Face. I miss his blog but as this olelongrooffan ages I realize that maintaining a blog on a daily basis can be time consuming and, after all, that Book can substitute the gratification a blog formerly provided.

Bus_Plunge gathered this REO on one of those trips out west. Probably in Utah or Idaho or some such. I have yet to test his ability to quantify the place and time a particular image was captured though. I would suspect his response would be something along the lines of "Hell, longroof, I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning, much less where I saw that old truck last fall."

Now my next oldest brother Tom, aka thehorsefarmer, also possesses this trait although not with the same vengeance as does this olelongrooffan and Bus_Plunge. I happen to know he captured this image in Arkansas some years back while on a road trip between his farm in the Ozarks and his summer place in the Sunshine State. He and his better half, thebarngoddess, were cruising pulling one of their fifth wheel campers and spotted this Bentley at Jerry's Auto Sales in Russellville, Arkansas.

Now, this olelongrooffan is certain my fellow Hoons are curious as to how in the hell I was able to determine with certainty the location of this old Bentley. Well, I had stopped by that old car lot on a Road Trip of my own just a few weeks prior to their passing it by and captured images of many of the same vehicles.

Finally the last, but not least of my male siblings, thejeepjunkie, seldom captures random images of roadside vehicles but instead seems to feature vehicles of his own. This image of his and theKid's vintage CJs on the beach in The Birthplace of Speed is one of this olelongrooffan's favorites. I personally don't blame thejeepjunkie for his lack of interest in random vehicles. The dude runs an auto repair facility and his entire career is surrounded by random vehicles. Plus, his wife, thesungoddess, usually travels with him and her interest in vehicles is virtually nonexistent, to say the least. Unless there is a new Cadillac involved. 😎

Well, now that this olelongrooffan has covered all the brothers in my family and our interest in random vehicles, my fellow Hoons may be asking where we got this from? This olelongrooffan respectfully submits the following:

This is an old school black and white photograph my father, the GentlemanFarmer took back in 1969 or 1970 just off the downtown square in the Queen City of the Ozarks, Springfield, Missouri.

Downtown Springfield was going through the phase popular at the time of converting drive through downtowns to pedestrian malls to compete with suburban malls popping up helter skelter and so popular at the time.

A downtown building was razed and thusly exposed this advertising mural painted on the exterior wall of the building adjacent. That debris filled Ford dump truck he captured located just below that delightful advertising mural is just the icing on the cake and demonstrated the eye my Pop had for a photo.

The GentlemanFarmer was the founding editor of the weekly Catholic newspaper for southern Missouri and the diocesan office was located downtown. As he had access to several 35mm Pentax cameras and all of the film he could shoot up, he captured photographs of nearly everything and fortunately lots of those photos were vehicular in nature that I hope to share with my fellow Hoons in the future.

Thanks RGL. Know this olelongrooffan appreciates the motivation. Rest In Peace 2003.

What I Saw Today: A Tin Can Tourist

There are times when this olelongrooffan is out and about checking out some of the “went here and saw that” kind of stuff that I have historically seemed to find on a pretty regular basis.

And sometimes some of that stuff is cooler than others. The other year I had one of those “cooler than others” kind of days. Well at least I think so. It’s possible some of you Counters may agree.

Yeah, I had just grabbed an elcheapo burger from that place named after Dave’s grand daughter and headed down to a place in the shade to scarf that burger down with an equally as cheap diet Coke when I spotted this “Tin Can Tourist” nonchalantly parked under yet another portecachere at a local overnite establishment.

Of course that burger and sodie pop were immediately set aside as I knew that the opportunity to capture these images may not survive my eating frenzy and this olelongrooffan decided to grab these images while the gettin’ was good.

When I first stumbled upon this caravan, my first thought was of Bus_Plunge and his PrvtRN and their equally as shiny Airstream and near vintage BigBlueBurban. However, I soon realized this was no simple Airstream. No, it was much more rare than that.

Yeah, latched onto the ass end of the 36 Caddy Fleetwood was a Spartan Manor. TheGentleman Farmer and my Mom had a similar vintage Spartan out on their property in Halltown, MO, just off Route 66 for a period of time and it was as cool as this one. That one, however, was as big as Lucy and Desi Arnez’s Long Long Trailer, not nearly as nimble as this wide white wall Coker shoe wearing beauty.

This one had porthole windows in the doors, one on each side by the way, along with the square and rectangular windows showcasing the work of the tradesmen (and women?) who constructed this Manor back in the day.Those folks, back in the day, down in nearby Tulsa, Oklahoma were proud enough of this beauty to tag it with their hometown and product name right on the ass end for every one of we Counters to see to this day. Yeah, no faded decal for these folks.

And while this rig hails from Colorado, someone, somewhere, thinks a lot of the Corpus Christi area enough to mention the port and its profit along with that personalized tag on the tow vehicle.

“I coulda had a V8.” This olelongrooffan is sure this question has been asked before but is “Fleetwood” one of the longer running name plates? And why doesn’t Cadillac have one in its stable today? This olelongrooffan would suspect that even the millennials swilling coffee at the marketing headquarters of Cadillac in NYC would recognize that nameplate. But then what the hell does this olelongrooffan know? I just know that Fleetwood has a lot more history to me than does, what is it these days? CT6? or whatever.

But I do have this to say about that. I never knew the AACA was founded in 1935, a year prior to the birth of this classic Fleetwood.

And while I peeked through the front windows of this classic tin can and spotted the very same burled maple wood paneling that adorned Mom and Pop’s Spartan, I just didn’t feel comfortable taking an image of that paneling. It is someone’s home away from home.

But this olelongrooffan did enjoy seeing this cool ass hood ornament.

It was a cool sighting and I hope those of you Counting Along With this olelongrooffanenjoyed seeing it as much as I did. 

1948 Chevrolet Fleetline Street Rod

So I have literally thousands of images in my image library. A lot of them have been posted around these here tubes while many have not seen the light of day since I had captured them years ago.

I am going to post up them here on By The Numbers over the next little while in an attempt to get off my procrastinating ass and start blogging again. Some of the posts will have little or no text within them while others may cause me to ramble on and on.

I hope you enjoy.

Back in what seems like another life, I would think nothing of stopping and taking images of what I thought were some pretty cool and somewhat rare vehicles. This is one of them.

It was in 2013 or 2014 and I was in Naples, Florida, and had pulled into a Stop-N-Rob for some petrol. In front of the strip office complex next door was this 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline Street Rod.

It was an older build and was obviously a driver, not a show car.