Happy Birthday moparedtn

[Cheapsunglasses]

 

[hemi*guy]

Happy Birthday!

 

[WileERobby]

 

[65Bel]

 

[junior340]

Happy birthday!!!

 

[roadrunnerh]

Happy Birthday Ed, and many more! I hope to meet ya at Carlisle soon.

 

[1967coronet]

Well ........... isn't that a
Happy birthday Ed.

 

[Dave6T4]

Happy Birthday, Ed, and many more. Your present is in the mail (trust me!).

 

[moparwacko]

Happy birthday Mr. Ed!!

 

[Scott Engelhardt]

happy birthday !

 

[Fran Blacker]

May the ED stories keep keep coming.

 

[eldubb440]

Happy Birthday Ed!!!

 

[Photon440]

 

[Skytrooper]

 

[beanhead]

Happy Birthday Ed, glad you're still hangin' around!

 

[JDmac72chrgr]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ED!!!

 

[cr8crshr]

Have A Great One!!!cr8crshr/Bill

 

[moparedtn]

I actually made it to 62 eh?
Well there ya go - another "settled science" fact shot all to hell...
I really appreciate all you folks taking the time to post in this thread, I really do!
THANK YOU!!

That said, I think it's high time for me to call attention to the gentlemen who has steadfastly
been starting HAPPY BIRTHDAY threads for so many members here for such a long time now -
namely, @turbine68rt STEVE!
Most early mornings when I get on here, the only way I know anyone is having a birthday is
because he has already made a thread for them and for that I'm very grateful, so thanks Steve!

 

[polywideblock]

happy birthday

 

[moparedtn]

Tell us a story about when you were younger.

Ok, I'll tell you a quick one - and no guarantee I haven't told it before (senility approacheth quickly!):
Some may remember my telling the story of driving my then '68 SuperBee to a NeHOA meet in Chicopee
MA around 1984 - from where we lived in northern VA at the time.
Ah, youth - you think you can do stuff and get away with it sometimes, eh?

My friend in his Challenger T/A and me in my then-new to me (and therefore, not shaken down yet) 'Bee,
straight up the I-95 corridor (including the GW bridge at morning rush hour, remember?).
Seeing the still-smouldering hulks of stolen cars on blocks sitting ON I-95 as you get caught in stopped
dead AM traffic WHILE your prized Mopar melts down from a tiny radiator, well - that tends to change
one's perspective, you might say....to the point where those orange plastic lane dividers don't look like
much of a challenge at the moment (and they weren't!).
Yeah, not the wisest of moves, even in those days...
(Thanks again Harlan, wherever you are!)

Well....there was even more to that story than I've bothered to report.
Yes, added drama to the same damn road trip!

See, the 'Bee's previous owner had installed a SixPak on the transplanted 440 prior to my purchase of the
car, but hadn't bothered to install the space-mandated 3-speed wiper motor that goes with that swap
(the 2-speed not having enough room to clear the air cleaner, after all) - so the car had no functional wipers.
Oh, the mechanism was all in place - there just wasn't anything motorized hooked up to 'em.
A more prudent owner would have rectified that before setting out on a long journey to the NE US, where
it has been known to rain upon occasion....

I wasn't that said prudent owner, however.

Full of youthful exhuberance that comes with taking ones' newest prize pig to the fair, I figured surely the
weather gods would bless my trip to be non-precipitational - and it was, all the way up!
Just as well, since by the time we got to Chicopee, the car was in dire straights with the whole radiator thing
and suddenly, I forgot about not having wipers.
Great meet went down, generosity of strangers occurred and we were all set to return on that following
Monday...

Monday morning came and we were greeted by storms.
Lots of storms. Shitake loads of rain.
"Old man with a boat full of animals" downpours.
All the way back down I-95 storms.
400 miles of storms...
And nary a wiper motor to be had, of course.

We tried the "co-pilot reaches under dash and operates wipers by hand" bit.
Co-pilot/human wiper motor petered out real quick and requested to be let out to ride with my friend
in the T/A...

We tried the "tie a string to both ends and pass it through the windows for the driver (me) to work the
wipers" method.
Human Wiper Motor #2 petered out real quick also - and managed to half-drown - and couldn't request
a transfer to the other car.

We employed the "Rain-X the living hell out of the thing under a bridge underpass" method.
Worked great - for about 5 minutes at a time...
Finally, I came to the realization that I could either a)surrender the car to the auto hyenas that had been
busy stripping and burning the other cars we saw on the way up, or b)grit my teeth and drive the white-
knuckle, slowly going-blind drive all the way back home.

Some 11 hours later, I pulled up in front of my friends' house in Alexandria, VA.
I pried my fingers off that formerly pristine woodgrain steering wheel, now permanently etched with my
own DNA - and tried to actually blink my eyes, which I hadn't done in seemingly hours.
I literally could not focus on anything - my eyes had been straining so hard to see through all the rain
simply refused to return to normal vision.
My friends' mom, taking pity on me, sat me down and applied warm compresses to my eyes for a while -
and eventually, all the jitters from all the caffeine and all the fuzzies from corneal abuse subsided enough
for me to rather exahustedly complete the last 15 miles home from there.

Brothers (and sisters), trust me on this:
When I think of some of the blatantly stupid things I've done in my life, the story
of attending that particular meet spring to mind every time, even to this day 40 years later.

I wouldn't have missed it for the world.