Best Of

I bought my first car in 1981, a 1953 Willy’s Jeep CJ-3B for $200.  I did have to tow it home (it had a convenient front tow bar).  I put a new (6V) battery in it, changed the oil, plugs, distributor cap & rotor, drained and refilled the oil bath air cleaner and filled the fuel tank with gas.  She fired right up and never let me down as long as I owned it.  Well….except for that time when the left rear tire fell off and passed me😬.  The Willy’s had left hand lug nuts on the right side (or should have).  A previous owner either reversed/swapped the axels, hubs or wheel studs so the studs were left-hand thread on the left and right-hand thread on the right, exactly opposite of what they should have been.  I was driving from Billings to Bozeman (over the Bozeman Pass) at interstate speeds…well actually more than interstate speeds at that time…(70-75) shhh…..about 140 miles.  The wheel fell off in Bozeman by the Park on So. 8th, just a few blocks from  the dorm parking lot where I was headed.  Lucky🍀  My jack was too tall to get under the Jeep to get the wheel back on.  A couple of people seen it happen.  Almost before I got out of the Jeep, a person had went and got my wayward tire out of someone’s front yard, maybe off of the porch? about 50-75 yards away and rolled it back.  Another fellow had grabbed a small floor-jack from his garage because he saw my jack was too tall and proceeded to jack up my Jeep.  I took the three lugnuts holding my spare tire to use as replacements, put the spare in the back of my Jeep, and installed my wayward wheel/tire on with the three lug-nuts.  I thanked everyone for their help and went on my merry way.  I doubt it took 30 minutes.
Montanan’s are great people, well the “native” ones anyway.  With “Out-of-Staters”….it’s a crapshoot.  With so many “Out-of-Staters” in Bozeman these days, I wonder if the scenario would play out the same?  I doubt it.

I do, and a barn to put it in!!!

How about things from the past that you haven't thought about for a long time?

My Freshman year in High School I dated a sophomore that had her drivers licence and access to her Daddy's Plymouth. Between my Sophomore and Junior year in High School until my bride and I were married 5 years later we went to the Drive in Movies because it was about all I could afford most weekends. I don't remember a single movie. Just saying.