After I bought my 1962 Plymouth Belvedere I joined the Western Illinois Antique Auto Club. The WIAAC met once a month at the Galesburg Mall in one of those meeting rooms on the way to the restrooms.
I'm not much of a joiner. When you see obits of guys with a long laundry list of memberships, well, I won't be one of them. I did, however, enjoy the old guys in the Club. I mostly sat in the back and kept still. One of my buddies was a fellow named Ron Harn who I took a liking to right off. Over the years I guess we became pretty good buddies and whenever we went to car shows together, I'd end up sitting around him. He and his wife Lana lived in Bushnell and he had a nice 64 Chevy. I always thought it was neat that she accompanied him to all the meetings, functions and car shows. I was always solo.
On one of my birthdays he gave me a photo book. The pictures, today, are from that book and are pics they took of me and the Plymouth while off doing various Club activities.
In these first few pics we are on an annual Fall Lumberry Tour run. These consisted of a day-long drives through the back roads near Dahinda starting from Hardees in Knoxville. Kenny Lumberry, the Tour director would lead the pack.
Ron would loan me a CB radio unit so I could hear all the chatter from the other drivers who talked back and forth. They gave me the handle of "Godfather" for some reason, probably having to do with my work at the Mary Davis Home. Needless to say, I didn't do much chatter. But it was fun listening to the others.
Here we are parked in Wyoming (I think) which was a handy pitstop on our way to Henry. Ron and Lana's '64 is right behind me. Mopar smokes a Chevy, hah!
There's Ron on the far left. A short stocky guy who had cement poured into one of his bad legs, I called him 'Redi-Mix' after that surgery. He worked for years at the Bushnell Hammer Factory and retired a few years ago. Lana worked at Western Illinois University and has retired int he past couple of years, too.
Here we are at Tanner's sitting in a circle chatting about things. The age of the group was a bit jarring, actually. Keith Nyman and I were a couple of the youngest ones in the late 40's, early 50's area while most of the other senior members were in their 70's. It is not a young man's hobby.
Our annual itinerary was to start out from Hardee's and take some nice black-topped roads through the countryside, meandering up to the Wyoming area for a break. After we'd get back on the road again, we would travel over to Sparland and up to Henry where we would have lunch in the park. I began taking rice krispie treats for dessert and it became an annual thing. I'm the one in the blue jean shorts and Redi-Mix is on my left. The park is on the river front and that is the bridge over the Illinois river in the background. We would take that bridge then head down to Lacon, cross the river again and head to Tanner's. By the way, I need Tanner's Cider donuts. Someone please go and send me donuts!
After lunch in Henry we would cross the river and then all caravan down to Tanner's Orchard. They would supply us doughnuts for the privilege of displaying our cars. There I am fiddling with something, probably my phone, and sitting next to Redi-Mix.
One of the activities of the Club was to take the old cars for an overnight somewhere. I only did it once, in Kalona, Iowa. This is a picture of my car at the motel where we all stayed. I think I went because I was railroaded into being on the organizing committee. It was the only time I went, but kind of sorry now I didn't go more often.
This final picture Lana took was a time I took 2 cars to the Bushnell Car Show. In the center is my 61 Imperial and to the right is my 62 Plymouth. Bushnell put on the BEST car show simply because everyone got a trophy. Can't beat that. Spend $12.00 entry fee for a $1.50 trophy and feel like a million bucks. Miss Frump and I have a date next summer for this show. I miss the Club and the Fall drives. The Lumberry Tour has since ceased since Kenny Lumberry became too ill to organize it. He died last March. Things change, darn it.
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