No Air Bags, No Seat Belts, No Radio

 

I learned something this week. My brother, Dave, bought a memorial brick in Mark's name at the Gilmore Auto Museum in Hickory Corner's, Michigan. I do want to go and see that brick. It means a lot to me. This weekend will be Model A days at the museum and I won't be going. That's because I was not sure of how a trip that long in a ninety three year old car would turn out. Like I said, I learned something. Instead of joining the Model A club in four hundred mile round trip, I and my brother Gary, took a much shorter trip into Indiana on Monday. Sort of a test run to see if I should join the club caravan next year. First of all, it rained. It rained all day Monday. It rained on Tuesday with early fog thrown in. Did I mention that my windshield wiper doesn't work? I learned that a product called Rain-x works pretty good letting rain sheet off your windows. I also learned that on the second day of rain, most of that Rain-x has washed off. I had wanted to take a lot of photos of our little trip, but it was raining. Lots of rain. Weatherman had said twenty percent chance of rain. We had one hundred percent of rain all day Monday, and the entire drive back to Chicago until we hit the city limits. All day Monday people were texting me that the weather back home was pretty nice. Sun and perfect temperatures. Not in Indiana. On Indiana route 35, northbound, I learned that the Indiana State Police will not stop to help when a 1929 Ford has a flat tire right in front of them. We had a flat tire. The car directly behind me when the tire went flat was an Indiana State Police car. It did not stop. So we pulled off into the soft mud on the side of the road and changed our tire in the rain.

Like I said, I learned things. I learned that even when the weather in Chicago is gorgeous, Indiana weather, only a few miles away, can be crap. I learned that it was very wise to bring my brother Gary along. He was an awesome navigator, with his little GPS app on his phone. Only got us lost twice. I also learned that such a long drive in a very old car is hard on my seventy two year old body. My back ached, my knee hurt (clutch), and I got very tired. So I won't be going to the Gilmore Museum with the other Model A's next September. More likely I'll be in my 2014 Ford Fusion with air conditioning, radio, seat belts, windshield wipers, automatic transmission, and very, very comfortable seats.