The Last Call

 Although this post is completely unrelated to classic cars or anything automotive, it is relevant to life, maybe yours but definitely mine. As a surprise for my wife on our anniversary I decided to buy another project car. Just kidding! I'm not that daft... Actually I bought tickets to one of her favorite musicians, Alan Jackson. This is his last tour and is aptly named "Last Call, One More For The Road."  Let me tell you, this man puts on one heck of a concert! The show was like a trip down memory lane with a lot of his classic music videos and cool stories that Alan recounted throughout the show. 

We attended his last show for 2024 in Salt Lake City, Utah and it dawned on me that this is it for him. Everyone that was there could clearly tell that he loves performing but time was catching up with him. It was painful to watch him walk across the stage and lean on a special rig when he was singing. I think he was in pain but wanted to be in top form for his fans so he declined taking any pain killers. I had not seen a recent picture of him so it was a bit of a surprise for me when I saw him up on stage. My first thought was: man, he looks old. My second thought was: man, he is only a few years older then me! It was just like when you see a classmate from your high school days and the first thing you notice is how old they look. Then reality comes crashing in when you realize that you are the same age and probably look just as old, or older!

While the brain is a physical organ that can be seen and studied, the mind is a conceptual idea representing our thoughts, feelings, and consciousness, which cannot be physically touched or observed. My brain may be physically old but my mind is consciously young, hence my reaction when I see someone around my age and think they look like Methuselah. Now I have been told numerous times that I look young for my age, but anyone would look young as compared to a 969 year old! Perhaps Henry Ford said it best: “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”

Toe the Line

 It's probably best that I stick to what I know, and low and behold, another project vehicle has claimed residence at the Amberlight Garage. My latest acquisition is a 1989 Dodge RAM 4 wheel drive truck. This was the last of the "box styled" pickups and the big ram head hood ornament always reminded me of the bulldog ornament on a Mack truck. Bought as a former daily driver, it's not exactly a restoration candidate, but more of a drive it while you fix it up project. 

I had been looking for another horse to put in the stable and was really in need of a pickup. Even when I am not in the market to buy I still pay attention and monitor classic car prices. It's like the stock market for me. There had been a steady decline in asking prices and after the usual feeding frenzy (as I call it) I noticed that vehicles were starting to take longer to sell. This is the perfect storm scenario for buying. Now the only challenge was finding a truck that was relatively rust free and that's not an easy feat in the neck of the woods that I live in. The vast majority that I looked at made most rust buckets look good. I'm talking Titanic levels of rust. The ad for the Dodge did not mention rust and that is usually a bad thing. Folks like to brag about "rust free" but tend to forget to mention it when it's bad. To say I was surprised when I looked at this truck would be an understatement. It had California levels of rust, as in Southern California, as in none! Sure it had a few spots of surface rust, but no cancer, rot, or flaking metal. I couldn't even find any bondo! The person selling it was the second owner, the original being his grandfather. He had a lot of the original paperwork for it and even had the stock rims that came on the truck from the factory! Now I had been watching this particular truck for a little while so I knew it had been for sale for more then a couple of weeks so I made a cash offer lower then the asking price. I didn't want to low ball him too bad because I wanted the truck and I don't think he realized just how few rust free trucks there are where we live! Honestly I didn't know why the truck hadn't sold sooner just for that fact. Remember what I said earlier about the perfect storm? Well I think this was it and that was confirmed when my offer was accepted almost as fast as I had said it.

As I do with all my projects, I started a list of repairs and modifications that I want to do on the Dodge. The suspension is all original with the exception of some of the steering components so one of my first mods will be a complete suspension kit. The truck still has it's original exhaust system so that will be replaced as well. The engine is all stock, original, and runs well but a Magnum 360 swap might be a future mod. Shoot, half the fun of getting a new project is planning what you are going to do to it! It has been quite a few years since I have owned a truck so I am going to have fun with this one. Little by little I'll get it done. I just have to keep on truckin'...