Well it's almost 3 a.m. and of course I've got my trusty Philco Predicta TV turned on. I'm watching Celtic Woman Live on the local PBS channel and I gotta tell you those Irish girls can sure play a fiddle. Not as good as 'ol Charlie Daniels when he out-fiddled the Devil, but they're good. Damn, wouldn't you know it. I jinxed it by talking about how good they were. They just put down their fiddles and now they are all shrieking and chortling at the top of their pretty little lungs, while dancing around some sort of Celtic shrine. I don't care how nice they look, I've got to change the channel before my ears bleed.
Okay, what else have we got? Here's an important breaking news item: The Teddy Bear Teacher. I'll pass. That must be something like the Dog Whisperer. You know, I hate to use profanity, but there sure is a lot of weird crap on television these days. I think it's time to turn it off and talk about old trucks.
On my way home from work there's a place that I drive by in Stanton, California, that used to be Boyd Coddington's wheel distribution center. These days the five-acre property is occupied by California Shipping and is always packed with old American trucks and cars waiting to be loaded into overseas cargo containers. Who knows where they are all headed to, but one thing is for sure: they will no longer reside in the States. I'd be upset about it, but knowing there are a lot more old cars and trucks being crushed everyday in California, I'm glad to see these vehicles are headed for a good home where they will live on and be appreciated. Maybe with a little bit of luck, perhaps one day I'll get a letter or e-mail from some guy in Europe who customized one of the trucks that I spotted while I was driving past the place. The last time I took this way home I was in my '66 Fleetside, and I didn't have a grille or headlights in it. Of course, this is the time of year when it gets dark early, so I kind of got caught with my lights out. In the process I might have even rekindled the legend of the "Highway 39 Ghost." Can't you just see it: a carload of freshly arrived immigrants from a superstitious culture in a clapped-out old import belching smoke down Beach Boulevard (39 is also known as Beach), when out of the dark night bursts a '666 Chevy ... Oops, typo, sorry, a '66 Chevy pickup screaming at redline with no lights?
The first thing they'd probably recount to their kinfolk when they returned home would be how it was like hearing Grand Papa and his horrific tales of Stuka dive-bombers shrieking out of the sky like banshees as they bombed the Iron Duke and sank it in Piraeus Harbor.
Okay, we've gone from Celtic women to the Greek Navy in just under 500 words, I think it's time to get to the serious crud. As you all might or might not know Custom Classic Trucks has a Web site. It's not like I'm one of those people who doesn't, as they say, embrace the Internet, because I hug that fat old Internet almost every day. Whether I'm at home ignoring the manly chores, or at work goofing off on company time, I find the Internet quite embraceable. In particular, I like to visit our very own CustomClassicTrucks.com, and I'm not saying this because the company pays me any additional salary, because they don't. Nope, I like visiting Custom Classic Trucks' Web site because it's a direct conduit to our readers. Or least it can be if you guys are taking advantage of our forums and blogs. If nothing else, you can log on and read some of the posts by people who obviously don't read our magazine. It's always a dead giveaway when they ask where to find something that we have advertised in the magazine.
Well, that's it for this month. I have to cut this short and get back on Custom Classic Trucks' Web site. Please look for my blogs on guitars, Cadillacs, and hillbilly music.-John Gilbert