by Willy Vinton
I had another great trip to the Chickasha Pre-War Swap Meet last week. The weather was very nice-- in the mid 70s to 80s--with mostly overcast skies. Fortunately it didn't rain until Sunday night.
As usual, I managed to take a few side trips away from the swap meet grounds. These first two pictures are from the McPherson Resoration College in Kansas. The students were tasked to see how fast they could put a Model T together and make it run.
I checked my watch to time them, but got so wrapped up in the event that I forgot to check the finish time. The students worked as a team and each had a specific job to do. They performed very well, although I'm not sure I would jump in the car and drive it up the Alaska Highway without a few cotter pins, checks and such. They were a great bunch of young men having fun and I'm glad I got to visit the college.
Back at the swap meet I checked out this old number 5 Hudson race car. I'm not sure what year it was built or if it had any interesting history, but it did look very period correct and would have been fun to play with.
This is a picture of the number 3 building, which shows some of the swap-meet crowd. By late Friday afternoon the crowd had thinned out a lot. There was no shortage of Model T and Model A projects, parts and nicely restored cars and pickups for sale this year, but I did notice a few empty booth spaces. I would think that the price of fuel has a lot to do with that.
Sure wish I could have driven this DeSoto Airflow back to Fairbanks, as it is a nicely done car. It is similar to one that was in Alaska back in the 1930s, but a few years newer.
The Oklahoma tornadoes stayed away from us by at least a 100 miles, but our flight back to Seattle took an extra two hours because we had to skirt a few twisters. We made it home in one piece, although we also came home empty-handed. Still, we made some good contacts, showed folks our new book and invited them up to visit our museum this summer.
Next stop, Bakersfield Swap Meet!