I'm deeply saddened by our loss of a true gentleman and patriot.
He was responsible for me choosing to use rivets to assemble the Model A speedster.
We spent quite a bit of time together at Dan's meets. We would sit and talk for hours about riveting, making guitars and other old man shit. He didn't want to talk about it in the shop, but after dark we would go outside at one of the picnic tables and he would share with me his mostly unpleasant experience in the Vietnam war. He was the helicopter repairman when the chopper was on the ground, but in the air he managed a .50 cal. machine gun that hung from the side bay door. Often, with great difficulty, he would share some of his missions he went out on. Rescue missions, support missions, recon missions and some times body recovery missions. We both cried a lot.
His 'crew' drew national recognition, and I apologize that I have lost the internet links to the sites that listed them along with some pictures.
It was more fun, when we would sit inside Dans shop between the walk-in door and the large door, in the morning eating eggs, bacon, French toast with that choke cherry jelly. Billy Jack still in that long dark red cloth coat that he slept in, reared back in the only padded chair in the shop, with that brown hat laid back on his head. He would catch me laughing my ass off at him until he figured out that I was laughing because he was dripping syrup off his plate into his lap. Then he'd take his fork and flip some of that same syrup over onto my sweat shirt, then tip his head forward and raise his eyebrows, daring me to flip some syrup back on him.
He spent extra time sharing riveting tips and tricks with me, making sure that I knew how to size them and install them. At one of the more recent meets he hand made me, and several others, a 'swirling' hand spun hole de-burrer, that I still know exactly where it is in my shop.
Once in a while, when we though that no one was looking, we would see who could get the most food to get stuck in our mustaches.
Damn, I'm gonna miss that old guy!
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