Some New year's Inspirations!

You know, there's plenty in the way of car stories I haven't seen written and -since many of us are on vacation- I thought I'd throw some "memory fodder" out there and see if anyone has anything to say.

William reminded me recently that the Suzuki T250 was more or less unaccounted for.

My memory of it is often more like these:

Dad used to take me and Bill Landis to trombone lessons on the Suzuki.  I would sit in front of him and hold my trombone on the left.  Bill would sit behind him and hold his trombone on the right.  Granted, this is not as impressive as you can find on the internet but it was pretty hysterical for suburban 70's Pennsylvania.  I am also impressed by the fact that the Landis family thought this was okay, and let Dad take us to lessons every Saturday in this mode (okay, many Saturdays, not every).  I sure remember the distinctive sound of the Suzuki's motor...

I thought I'd throw this one up, too, though I'm not sure if it's accurate.

There are some pretty funny stories (ahem) regarding broken throttle cables, but my favorite moment with this one was the day we decided to remove the (rather tall) stumps of the pine trees (the ones between the holly tree memory and the chinese cherry).  William, Jim, and I decided we could use the "come-along" (ratchet cable winch) to use one stump to pull the other out because, of course, we could just pull them together till one started to give, then lower the cable on the weaker tree to pull out the stronger tree.  Except, neither tree gave.  we tightened that winch up until the cable hit C above high C on the piano, and both stumps just sat there.  We chopped at the roots on the outside of the stumps, but no effect. Now, no one wants to stand next to cables that tight, so we decided we'd take a break.  We were about to walk away and William said, "Oh, we better put a flag on this.  You just know that Dad would pick today to drive the Goldwing through here!"  So we put a red tee shirt on the cable, which crossed between the stumps about three feet up.  I went in to make some lunch and William took the RD350 up to Roger Clark's maybe?  It wasn't 15 minutes later that I heard him accelerating coming down the drive way, then I hear "Oh SHIT!" and a weird series of thumps.  William had somehow forgotten (or decided to re-enact the mental scene of Dad hitting the taught cable) about the cable and he himself drove through remembering only a split second before hitting the cable.  He jumped up off the Yamaha as it hit the cable and landed somewhere in the middle of the lawn.  I didn't see any of this, of course, William was already getting to his feet when I ran out of the house.  I think we left those cables up for a few weeks to see if the stumps would soften up.  They never did, so we had to repair the chainsaw.  

Some other pictures for inspiration:

And, finally, a collective correction.  The Rambler Classic Wagon was a 1966.  Everyone always referred to it as a 1965, but it was a 66. So "Happy New Year" to the 66 Rambler and all of you.

 I've never been able to find a photo of one in that weird shade of purple-silver.

Oh, I just found this one!  OOOoooooooh...