Ron's New Project

Saturday morning I had to get up early and be on the other side of town to show some houses. The plan was as soon as I got home the 3 of us would head over to the swap meet if Ron was feeling up to it after his proceedure the day before. I finally got done about noon and called home to let them know I was on my way and should be home in about a half hour. Naturally, I woke both of them up but they promised to be ready when I got home.

It was after 1pm by the time we finally left and of course we had to run thru McDonald's since none of us had lunch, so it was really about 1:15 before we were on the road. The swap meet goes strong until about 3pm, so I wasn't too worried about it until Ron sprung it on us that he had another swap meet in mind to check into first. He handed me the flyer that he had printed off and it was a car swap meet at the fair grounds. Except that it was only open until 2pm and it would take us about 20 minutes to get there. We were cutting it close.

We pulled into the fairgrounds at about 1:40 and the parking lady asked if we realized it closed in 20 minutes but she still made us pay $7 to park. Ron promised we would just take a quick look to see what it was all about since there was another one scheduled for March. It was such a nice day out and Brenna and I were along for the ride so we just kind of strolled in to see what was going on. We knew pretty fast we were in for it even if more than half of the places had already closed up shop. Ron was like a kid in the candy store! Car parts everywhere!

And then he saw it. You would have sworn the heavens opened up and the angels sang.

Notice how there seems to even been a halo shining over that hunk of junk? Ron's eyes just lit up. What is it, you might ask? It's the cab of a 1936 Ford pickup and it's Ron's new project. He was so excited but didn't have enough cash on him so left Brenna and I there at the fair grounds while he went and found an ATM. The guys that had it for sale were making jokes that we were the collateral! Ron was back in record time and they soon had it loaded into the back of his truck and we were off for home.

I was a little concerned about the 3 of us getting it out of his truck, but luckily Ron has some sort of wench thing that lifted it right out. It's sitting on a couple pieces of plywood and wheels so it's pretty easy to just roll it around the garage at this point. It's really not that big either so doesn't take up too much room but there is no way my car is ever going back into the garage.

The next reasonable question is what is he going to do with it? Well, he wants to turn it into a Rat Rod. If you aren't into cars you are probably wondering what a Rat Rod is. Well, this is an example:

Except I don't think Ron wants to make his quite that "pretty". He likes them more in their natural rust bucket shape. I keep telling him I want it shiney but he keeps telling me that will take a lot of money, which I would prefer didn't happen. So we will see. He has an engine and transmission for it already, but you can tell it's a long way off before needing those!

All I can say is that for $100 this has made Ron more happy than I have seen him in a long time. He has another project again that is going to take him YEARS to complete, so I'm happy too. And I think this is something the two of us can enjoy when it's done, unlike the plane he built.