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Archive for the 'My Hemmings' tag
From the My Hemmings pages – a Cadillac to span the country and generations
All photos by Sean Mathis.
Sean Mathis never got the chance to drive his grandfather's 1959 Cadillac Coupe de Ville – hadn't even sat behind the wheel – until, that is, the day an auto transporter dropped it off near his house in North Carolina and he took possession of it. Already an old car enthusiast, he now has the car that means the most to him in his garage and has already started getting his two kids excited for old cars too. As he tells the story in My Hemmings:
My grandfather, whom I called "Pop," originally bought this 1959 Cadillac Coupe de Ville in California. It was the family car while my dad was growing up but eventually the car fell out of use and was stashed away under a tarp in Pop's shop. As a kid, I would wander into the garage and drool over the car, but I never even sat in it, much less saw it on the road.
When I was 20, Pop passed away. The car remained in the shop, pulled out once for a cousin's wedding but then stashed back under the cover. Being the only car enthusiast in our family, I spent most of the next ten years trying to take ownership of the car, offering to purchase it from my grandmother on several occasions. She always turned down my offers. At one point, she even told me that she would rather keep the car in the family than sell it to me. It was at this point that I knew her mind was starting to go and I gave up all hope of ever owning Pop's car.
Grandma passed away in 2014 and, in her will, she directed that her estate be split evenly between her two sons–my father and my uncle. Well, that's it, I thought to myself. They'll sell the Cadillac and some random person will soon be driving around in Pop's car.
A few months later, however, my dad called me and asked, completely out of the blue, if I still was interested in that old Cadillac.
"Of course!" I answered, likely before he'd finished asking the question.
As it turned out, my dad, sharing my reluctance to let the car leave the family, had bought out his brother's stake in Pop's car so that he could give it to me.
I soon realized that my struggles with this car had just begun. Until recently, I had spent my entire life in California and Idaho, never far from Pop, his shop, and the Cadillac. Just before this transfer-of-ownership, however, I had moved to North Carolina and thus faced the challenge of having an 18-foot car transported across the country. After a month of puzzling over logistics, I finally went down to the local Food Lion parking lot to meet my Cadillac.
As I drove into the parking lot, I instantly discovered what owning this car entails: within minutes I had offers from passersby to purchase the car. Employees came out of the stores just to see it up close. With all the attention and hoopla, I was concerned that the car might find a way to let me down and that I'd have to have it towed back to my house. After a bit of encouragement, however, it started up and rolled off the transporter.
I signed the paperwork and started home, filled with a powerful mix of emotions. Despite lusting over this car for my entire life, I had never even sat behind the wheel, and yet here I was, driving it. I was distracted, too, because something felt…wrong. Even when I stepped on the gas, the car just seemed to drag. Oh, that's why, I realized: the parking brake was engaged. If only all car problems were so easily fixed.
As I pulled up to my house, I quickly realized my next unsolved puzzle. Would this 18 feet of Americana fit in my garage? I backed the car up the driveway and into the garage, as close to the wall as possible on the passenger side. Finally, with about a pinky finger's worth of space between the car's back bumper and the wall, I managed to get the garage door down.
I couldn't sleep that night. I was so giddy that I stayed up all night, cleaning the car and giving it the much needed love it deserved. The next weekend I took it to a car show that I had just learned about 45 minutes earlier and took home a Top 20 award. Since then, I have attended every local car show and parade I can find and the Cadillac has been a champ, requiring only an oil change and a new battery. I even have the original California license plate that reads "4POPS59," and have since gotten a North Carolina one to match.
As the weather warms up this spring, I'll be hitting the road in my Cadillac, taking it to more distant car shows, using it to raise money for charity, and mostly just sharing my excitement with others. And further down the proverbial road, I'll see that my son owns it.
Got a story or photos you'd like to share? Register at My Hemmings to do so.
Second owner, first car, zero regrets: J-code Mach 1 comes out of retirement
All photos by Jess Brin.
Hemmings reader Jess Brin, aka WhipMeister, of Dallas, Texas, recently shared the remarkable story of how he found his first car—a 1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1 with the J-code 375hp 429 Super Cobra Jet—his adventures with it, and his recent decision to resurrect it after a years-long slumber. For more of the story, visit Jess's page on My Hemmings, and for more photos of the restoration, visit Jess's Flickrstream. Oh, and if you have a story or photos to share, upload it to My Hemmings today.
In late 1973, freshly equipped with a new Texas driver's license and some money saved for a car, I embarked on a quest to find my first ride. I was keen on Trans Ams or Camaros and, coming from a GM family, didn't really have an interest in Mustangs, at all. Especially 71-73s. But some friends of mine kept teling about this 'Bad 429 Mach 1′ that they knew the owner—a kid in another neighborhood—was selling and kept egging me on to at least take a look. One of these friends had a 70 Boss 302 homologation edition (guess they're known as 'Parnelli Jones' that I was impressed with—that car is a whole 'nother fascinating story by itself), so I finally agreed to take a look at the Mach, to shut them up more than anything.
Well, I never believed in love at first sight until I walked into this guy's garage and he flipped on the light. It was simply eye-popping gorgeous. A spotless Grabber Yellow 1971 J-code 429CJ Ram Air 4-speed greeted me. Only 15,000 miles. Gorgeous black deluxe interior, blacked out NACA hood with the tattle-tale '429 RAM AIR' emblazoned on each scoop. Hockey stick stripes. I'd never seen a 429 Mach 1. Never really knew they existed until then, And was it ever scary, scary fast.
Umm, I had to have it. Luckily it was in the budget (heck of a lot cheaper than a Trans Am) and, after some careful copy editing of the pitch to my mom, it was mine.
Turns out the car had quite the reputation down on Dallas' legendary Forest Lane which was why my buddies were hyping it to me. Details slowly emerged that Mark (the guy I bought it from) had pretty much been in the habit of dispatching all challengers. While it had been returned to almost completely stock trim when he sold it, it had at one time been outfitted with all the go fast goodies (many of which I wound up buying off of him). He still had a big Crane cam, 4.71 gears, slicks, big Holley, intake, ported D0VE-C heads, etc. Most of which I relieved him of. Turns out his dad was making him sell the car after a couple of 'issues'.
His loss, my gain.
Needless to say I did my very best to uphold the yellow Mach's legacy on many a night down on Forest. Pretty successfully. I've owned a lot of fast cars in the intervening decades, but that Mach with its 385 series big block is still one of the most violently powerful cars I've ever piloted. An L-88 Vette is the closest thing I can compare it to. We would comfortably dial it in at 11.80 at Green Valley on pump gas even though we could never get it to hook up hard. Flipped the rear end out of its spring perches and snapped a big shaft Toploader main shaft right in half before we learned to 'pedal' it out of the hole in the interest of preventing further damage. Solid 11-second performer, even so.
Because I was a kid with few income prospects and hot rodding is expensive, the Mach frequently sat with one thing or another broken waiting on funding to fix. Over the years eventually life overtook me. College, career, family displaced everything else. The Mach, with its 24,000 miles on the odometer, sat in my mother's driveway under a cover. Year after year. She, was always prodding me: "When are you going to get rid of that 'junk' car? People ask about it all the time." My reply, "Never."
I had done my homework. J-code 1971 Machs are one of the rarest Mustangs ever produced. A little over 1,200 copies. One year only. So I was certain that one day, I'd have the means and time to get her back out. As a future investment, it was a no-brainer.
That time finally came in 2013. 40 years after I had first walked into Mark's garage and fallen hard for the big Mustang and after years of collecting OEM odds and ends.
My nephew, son of my late brother, complained one day that his dad had never really shown him how to 'work on cars.' I said, 'Well. You've come to the right place.'
I faced a dilemma in tackling the 'restoration.' It really needed a rotisserie, as time and water had taken a toll on the cowl (common Mustang problem area), a small section of the passenger floor and the entire trunk floor (downside of a rear-mounted battery BITD). But a friend of mine in the hobby that I trust (and who runs a body shop) came over and took a look and said, "The original paint from the doors forward is pretty solid, the glass is original, the interior only needs carpet and a headliner to look fresh. You already know the drivetrain is good … we'd already cleaned everything up fired it … You know, if I were you, I'd just freshen it up a bit, deal with some of the rust issues and roll it back out as your own personal 'barn find'." Me: "But it has dents here and here and there." Him: "This is the way you ran this car 40 years ago. Not many people still have the same car. I'd run it again just like it is with just the essential updating. Everybody likes seeing a time machine and this is definitely one."
So that's what we decided to do. I figure I can always do the rotisserie later. As he had said, the original paint was pretty good from the doors forward, but the quarters and trunk surfaces were badly spiderwebbed and chalky. Evidence of prior repairs and respray from a couple of minor fender benders—one mine, one the previous owner's. The black section of the hood was faded and thin.
The drivetrain was exactly as we had parked it (running) in the late '70s. It was short work to install a new battery, fresh plugs, fresh oil and filter, new dizzy (the old mallory grenaded on the first firing), carb rebuild, new fuel tank, pump and flushed lines, new headers and assorted electrical fixes. It fired right up from its multi-decade hibernation. Boy, you know that brought back some memories!
Over the next few months, we tackled a DIY respray from the doors back with new stripes, overhauled the brake system, new suspension components, fresh carpet, fresh passenger seat bottom, new package tray, etc. We replumbed the exhaust to be (a little) quieter. We retained the Fenton R/T aluminum wheels that I thought were so cool in 1975, kept the coil over shocks in the rear, and the Lakewood slapper bars. We replaced the 4.71 Detroit locker with a 3.89 Detroit locker center section (we kept the center section in case we wanted to go to the track) for better street manners.
The Mach is now back on the road as a fair weather cruiser and we regularly make the local cruise events. It's amazing to think that it is still running the same 429 I engineered and built as a teenager. And it's still scary fast.
It's a real blast to have people walk up to us out on Forest Lane during a cruise and say, "I remember a car just like that our here in the '70s. Man was it fast." Can you say 'conversation starter'?
Tips for telling your car's tale
A screen grab of the My Hemmings page.
In this era of social media and websites for just about anything auto-related, we all have the opportunity to tell the story of our own cars for thousands of like-minded people to read and appreciate. Even Hemmings.com offers an area for reader submissions, where you can post photos, videos and stories about your ride.
Though many people post narratives that are entertaining and inspiring to others, there are many more who also have an interesting car and a compelling story, yet they haven't shared it. If you are a reserved person who prefers to keep your cars private, then of course, that's your prerogative.
However, if you would like share the story of your marvelous machine, but are hesitant because you wonder if it is worthy, assess it again. Even if you have a halfway decent driver, it's fine for just about any site except for those specifically geared toward concours restorations. Project cars are also welcomed on most sites. People love to hear about a project in progress, so use its current condition to provide a captivating story of how far it has come, what you are doing with it now, and what your goals are for finishing it.
If you're still apprehensive about posting photos and a write-up regarding your favorite coveted carriage because you don't know where to begin and how to organize the elements of the story; however, you're not alone and help is on the way. Magazine writers go through it occasionally when we write stories, too. Feature car owners sometimes experience it when trying to complete the tech sheet. You feel like you can't collect your thoughts and arrange them in a logical order, you lament not getting better grades in English class and you're concerned that you'll make some embarrassing factual or grammatical error that you will never live down.
If that all sounds familiar to you, then welcome to my world. I have those concerns every time I write anything, yet I've been doing it since 1993. The good news is over that time, I've picked up a few tips, which I'll provide here, so that you can get past your literary anxiety, choose some photos of your car that you like (front 3/4, rear 3/4, engine and interior are usually best) and post a story that you can be proud of, or at least comfortable with.
1) Use a strong lead sentence that grabs attention. It will be the hook to get people interested and keep them that way. Leads can be drawn from a unique characteristic of the vehicle, its rarity, its historical significance, a great story about it, its color, why you like it so much, wordplay on its name, or wordplay on your name, occupation, or hobbies.
2) Provide the year, make and model. I know, it sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised by how many people omit one or more of them. They must assume that readers will know from the photos, but remember, not everyone who reads your write-up will know as much about your type of car as you do.
3) Explain why you wanted the car in first place. Tell the story of what got you interested in this type of car (muscle, luxury, sports, classic, etc.) and also why you like this particular make and model.
4) Describe when, where and how you found it. Sometimes the story of tracking down your pride and joy and buying it is just as interesting as the car itself.
5) Tell about your first impression when you saw it. What condition was it in? Was it complete? Was it driveable? Did it appear to be better or worse than you had imagined?
6) List the exterior and interior colors and mechanical information, including: engine size and description, transmission type, rear end type and rear gear ratio (if you know it). Include anything you feel is noteworthy about the chassis, as well.
7) Discuss any options that you feel are interesting or particularly rare.
8) Describe what you did with the vehicle once you bought it—restored it, modified it, drove it, raced it, or simply admired it parked in the garage.
9) Discuss how you enjoy your car and how you feel now when you drive it, show it, or race it.
10) If you believe that you don't have an enthralling story about why you wanted the car, or how you found it, or restored it, or modified it then instead share the most interesting, satisfying, funny or downright weird moment you had with it.
11) If it has won at shows or races, talk about that, as well.
12) Offer insight regarding future plans you have for your car.
13) If you are having a difficult time trying to put your discussion points in a practical order, here are three ways to ease the process and make the story flow.
- Use the order provided in my listing of these tips above.
- List what was done to the car in chronological order from when you purchased it to now.
- List items from front to back on the car. For example, for the powertrain, discuss the engine followed by the transmission and rear. For body work, begin at the nose and work your way back when describing what was done. Suspension? Front first, then the rear—same with the interior.
Other Considerations
1) Your name, age, occupation, and the town and state you live in are all optional, yet important. I know that many people prefer not to give too much personal info online for privacy and safety reasons; however, providing at least some basic information helps ground the story and puts it into context. Think of it as the establishing shot at the beginning of a movie or TV show. Perhaps provide just your first name instead of your full name, if you prefer. Say that you live in the Midwest instead of specifically in Gary, Indiana. Describe yourself as a "retired grandfather of four" instead of "I'm 68 years old." Those examples provide enough information to give perspective to the story without getting too personal.
2) Try not to overuse the word "car," as there are many ways to describe your vehicle. Instead, use lots of adjectives and other nouns when possible—Firebird; F-body; F-car; Bird; Pontiac, etc.
3) If you mention other people in the story, be sure to include their relationship to you.
4) Avoid beginning consecutive sentences with the same word.
5) Avoid beginning consecutive paragraphs with the same word.
6) Be aware of how often you begin sentences with "The" and "A."
7) Have fun with this process, as that's the point. It should be a no-stress activity that you can take pride in once it's completed.
How I made and lost nearly $500,000 on old cars in a few months
Photos by Tom Hardy.
[Editor's Note: Tom Hardy uploaded the following story about four Buick Skylarks that he let slip away to the My Hemmings pages and we thought it worth sharing here. If you have an old car story to tell, My Hemmings is the perfect place to do so.]
I was a nine-year-old boy, headed to Miami in the family sedan for the annual summer vacation rite. When we pulled into the motel and started unloading all the trappings of a big 1950s family, this baby-blue car next to us gleamed in the Florida sun. Wire wheels, continental kit, it had it all. That 1953 Buick Skylark became the model on which all my car obsessions were based for the next 50 years.
In my 20s, I always admired cars with similar lines – those Jaguar 120s, Austin-Healy 3000s, anything that resembled the flow and look of that distant childhood image in my head. But I never saw another Skylark for sale, and I certainly didn't have the money to pick one up. In 1970, I found myself in North Carolina, selling sand for an industrial sand producer. In a copy of Hemming's, there was an ad for a 1953 Skylark about 100 miles away in Roanoke, Va. Money or not, I decided to at least give the fellow a call. I don't remember how much he asked for it – I was and still am a salesman, so the opening price never matters that much – but we settled on $1,100 for a white version of my dream car. It was in near-perfect shape, unrestored with low mileage: an absolute barn beauty. Furthermore, a blue one sat in the backyard, not too much more than a parts car but still intact that I convinced him to throw in! Who would have thought that two '53s would be found in the same homestead, much less for sale?
I wasn't flush with cash, but I certainly was with obsession. I called a banker back in my home state (Tennessee) to borrow the money and wire it over, and then arranged to be dropped off to triumphantly drive my new white stallion back to North Carolina. Not being the wisest in my 20s – much more on that in a moment – I never did pick up the less-alluring parts car, but as it had already sat back there for years the fellow didn't mind holding onto it for a few more months while I figured something out. I had a few blessed months with the beauty as my show car to tool around town, and a company car as my daily driver.
Not content with two '53s, I kept asking around about the Skylarks, and an acquaintance told me about a junkyard on the north end of town where there were a couple vehicles that at least looked similar to my ride. Lo and behold, in a massive junkyard, there were TWO '53s – a white wreck with a replaced Roadmaster left front fender (note the Skylark emblem by the back left wheel) and a black one, complete with continental kit, whose only crime was being old and uncared for. Just one row apart, they were within a week of being burned and scrapped, the junker told me. I bought them both for a grand total of $75.
My original find, that white apple of my eye, served me well but my marriage was going south. I was getting ready for a divorce and to head back to Tennessee. As many will attest, getting a divorce often leads to losing more than one thing we at least, at one time, loved and my four Skylarks would be no exception. Living in an apartment complex, I'd left the two in the junkyard where they rested as much for storage as anything else, and I decided that's where they would stay for the time being. Having to haul all four cars to Tennessee was just going to be too much hassle.
When I got back to Tennessee to start working on the move, I borrowed a box truck with a homemade trailer to haul my show Skylark. After me and my buddies arrived and loaded all my now-single man trappings into the truck, I fired it up to drive onto the trailer… and discovered I was out of gas. The complex was on top of a hill, so we positioned the trailer by the entrance and pushed the Skylark onto it, not realizing that the trailer (being homemade and such) was too narrow to haul the car. The doors butted up against the exposed tires of trailer, making the whole affair completely immobile and impossible to open the doors. My friend steering the car was now stuck inside, since the vacuum-operated windows required the car to be running to be let down. So there we left him, on top of an unattached rat-trap trailer inside a gorgeous Skylark, completely blocking the complex as folks were coming home from work, while we took the box truck to get a can of gas.
Broke, frustrated and without a great many other options, I called up a local friend who loved the Skylark as much as I did and cut a deal. I sold him all four for $750 – taking a loss at the time on cars that, if three were restored and my showboat simply preserved, would be worth well over $400,000 today. To this day, I've never heard of finding four of the 1,690 produced for sale within a 100-mile radius… much less ever hearing about any fellow lucky enough to buy four, in any shape, from a desperate guy in his early 20s for less than a thousand bucks.
From the My Hemmings pages – first classic at 40
Many people assume that entry into the old car hobby is some arcane process, done with secret handshakes when we're all knee-high to a grasshopper, but those sorts of assumptions tend to make the hobby intimidating to outsiders and are just plain wrong: We all come by our interests in old cars in different ways and at different times of our lives, and no story better illustrates that fact than Mark Nadzan's. Mark, who told the tale of how he recently bought his first old car – a 1965 Ford Mustang coupe – on My Hemmings, waited until he was 40 and fairly well settled in life to get into the hobby, but is just as enthusiastic as any old-timer in the hobby. Mark writes:
When in Rome. That basically wraps up how, at almost 40 years of age, I decided to purchase my first classic car. Rome for me is Bow, NH. My family and I moved to Bow in June of 2013. It's a small town nestled between Manchester and Concord. Upon moving to Bow, I decided to get involved in the town as much as possible. This led me to join the Bow Men's Club. Upon my first meeting/dinner, I was fortunate enough to sit at a table with a group of men in their 60s. They all seemed to have classic cars of various makes, models and years. The stories they shared amongst the table were entertaining and filled with a passion not normally seen in men talking about, well, anything. What I was astonished about was that classic cars that can be safely driven are actually affordable. My previous notion of cars was from auctions, highly unaffordable for someone of my modest means, so why bother getting interested in them? The stories I heard that evening, and the idea that something could be bought for ten to fifteen thousand had my wheels turning (pun intended).
My wife and I started to look at classics in the area. A friend from Bow Men's a Club recommended I pick up Hemmings Motor News to have a broader selection of what's out there. I was bitten hard. I devoured classic car magazines. I was taken in by Packards, De Sotos, Buick Specials and other cars of the '50s. Then my eye started to catch the cars of the '60s, particularly the muscle and pony cars of the '60s. What made this even more enjoyable was that my wife showed interest. Fast forward six months and many cars looked at later, my awesome wife made my dream of a classic car come true. This January, my wife stated "how great it would be, for your 40th birthday present, that I buy you a classic car." Can you say "I have the best wife ever"?
In February, I was looking at a car at a dealership in western NH. The car I was interested in ended up being not in the best shape. The owner steered me (again, pun intended) toward a '65 Mustang that he would let go for $10,000 to make room for other cars currently sitting outside in the snow. I was surprised to see this, since an Internet search for cars under $12,000 in NH did not produce this car, but it had the one I was no longer interested in. My wife and I had looked at a number of '60s Mustangs that were more expensive and nowhere near the condition of this Mustang. I asked the dealer what it looked like under the car. He stated we can go back to the showroom to see the pictures online. Upon him pulling the car up online, I saw why this Mustang did not show up on my Internet search. To both of our surprise, the car was listed for $15,000. I stated what a sales tactic to tell me the price of $10,000 down at storage and lure me back to the computer to show me the "actual selling price." He quickly checked a folder from a filing cabinet and reluctantly stated the lowest he could sell it for was $10,500. I told him I would talk to my wife that day and get back to him the next day.
Upon seeing the car online, and hearing the sales price, my wife said "Happy Birthday." The next day, I left a few messages throughout the day for the dealer. I was a bit dismayed to not hear back from him. That evening, I shot him and email. I received a response back from the dealer the next day, stating he was a bit busy and would get back to me in a few days. A week later I got the impression he was ducking me to not sell the car at that price. I decided to put the whole situation to prayer and see how it would unfold. After awhile, I made peace with the idea it was not meant to be. Three weeks later, at the point of making peace with the fact that this Mustang was not meant to be, I received a call saying, if still interested, the Mustang was mine to buy at $10,500. It was on!!! So my future 1965 Mustang specs – hardtop; 289 V8 2-barrel carb; automatic trans. (so my wife can also drive it); teal exterior with two-tone teal and white interior, and just over 90,000 miles. Work to be done before delivery was changing out the single exhaust to dual exhaust, as well as $700 worth of work to make the car more driveable and safe.
I took delivery of the car on Friday, March 7th. I was able to hold off for a week or more before I had to take it out. I waited for a colder day so no melting snow, slush and/or water would be on the road. To the horror of those reading this, I did not care about the sand/salt-covered roads in Bow, NH. Off I went. Up and down the road, my daughter and son, 7 years and 5 years, got in the back for the ride. Probably from my excitement, my children caught on to the excitement and understood this car was different from others on the road. Smiling ear from ear, my daughter stated that I need to pick her up from school in this "cool car." We roared up and down the street, the dual exhaust and engine doing its job with a deep throaty growl. This was awesome. Upon getting home, my wife joined the fun. The four of us happily drove up and down the street.
My goal with the car is to restore it to as close to stock as possible. As with a new classic car owner, revelations with the car have sprung up. How I handle these issues, how I restore it, and how my family and I enjoy it this year will be future stories. If you are thinking of getting into classic cars, I hope my excitement and joy with this car pushes you to do so. If you are an avid and long-time collector and aficionado, I hope you can relive the "newness" of it all through me. Finally, I hope to put the same smile I have now writing down my experiences getting into classic cars on your face. Stay tuned.
Do you have a story about old cars you want to share? Maybe some photos or video? We'd love to see it over on My Hemmings.
From the My Hemmings pages – lost honeymoon Chevrolet
Sam Kriger's parents, Jim and Barbara, had a grand plan for their honeymoon. Right before their June 12, 1955, wedding, they'd trade in Jim's 1948 Chevrolet convertible on a brand-new Chevrolet – a 1955 Bel Air two-door convertible painted Neptune Green Metallic over Seamist Green and equipped with the 180 hp Power Pack 265-cu.in. V-8 – and then take off from Columbia, South Carolina, after the wedding in their new car. They'd cross the country to San Francisco and then head back East, not to South Carolina where Barbara's family lived but to Portland, Maine, where Jim's family lived and where the two would also make their home. Along the way, Barbara learned how to drive (on a three-on-the-tree with overdrive, no less), and the young couple made a lifetime of memories, we're sure.
About nine years and 50,000 miles later, Jim and Barbara sold the Bel Air for $175. And that's where most of these family album car stories tend to end, but Sam grew up a car lover and ended up owning a 1955 Chevrolet station wagon, also painted green, which caught the eye of a 1953 Ford owner who parked his car next to Sam's at a local car show and started telling Sam about the green 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air that his brother owned in high school. As they conversed, Sam realized that the Ford owner's brother, Chuck Keller, had bought the convertible off his parents when he was just
16 6 years old.
Sam couldn't let the opportunity pass, so he spoke with Keller and found out that Keller, in turn, sold the Bel Air in the late 1960s to Ray Legasse of South Portland or Scarborough. After Legasse, the Bel Air's trail gets cold, however, so Sam has asked us for help in trying to find his parents' honeymoon car to reunite it with his parents, who are both still around. All he really has to go on is the above description and the Bel Air's VIN – VC55B098430 – but that may be enough. If anybody knows the whereabouts of the Bel Air convertible, let us know and we'll get you in touch with Sam.
From the My Hemmings pages – tri-generation Torino GT
Every now and then we need a reminder that we're in the collector car hobby as much for our appreciation of older cars as well as for the old-car experiences we share with others. My Hemmings member vince311 provided that reminder recently with the story he related about the 351-powered 1970 Ford Torino GT convertible that his parents bought used and passed on to him for a full restoration a few years back. After reading his story about the Torino, reprinted below, check out his photos of the restoration process.
It was the summer of 1976, my mom (19) and dad (23) were newly married. Over breakfast they scoured the classifieds for a used car, and before long, they came across an ad for a Torino convertible. Upon arriving in the West Hills, an affluent area of Portland Oregon, two teenagers were already kicking the tires and haggling on the price. The owner, a successful ophthalmologist, wasn't settling for low-ball offers and allowed my dad a test drive. After a quick spin, they immediately fell in love and paid the $1,400 asking price. From then on out, Dad would refer to our Torino as "The Convertible."
While the original owner had primarily used The Convertible for weekend trips to the coast, it would serve throughout the '80s as a daily driver, taking my dad back and forth to his job as a plumber. Now, 30-plus years later, my dad recalls a fellow plumber who drove one very sweet '70 Torino Cobra. Nightly, upon finishing up at the job site, the two would line up and run the cars down a local street. He chuckles, noting the "races" weren't too impressive, as while the two cars shared the Torino name, our 351 Cleveland 2bbl was no match for the power of the 429 CJ.
Mom often drove The Convertible as well, goosing it from stop light to stop light, throwing my brother and me into the backs of our seats as she ran errands. My brother and I could be found reenacting our own "go-fast scenes" from our favorite show, The Dukes of Hazzard, sliding in and out of the windows as the car rested in the driveway. While the Torino didn't have the heart-stopping power of a big-block, it would squeal the tires on fast take offs and had a menacing low growl, thanks to the glass pack mufflers. Dad always insisted (with a wink) that the dual exhaust provided "much improved" gas mileage.
By 1989, The Convertible was being driven less frequently and definitely starting to show its age. The freeze plugs had failed during a week-long cold snap, and the engine block cracked. The beautiful red lacquer paint was starting to oxidize on the horizontal surfaces. And on a cold October night, heading home from a family dinner, we hit a deer. The impact not only killed the deer, but also the hard-to-find egg-crate grille. With apparently retirement on the horizon and changing family needs, my folks sought out a more family-appropriate vehicle for daily transportation. Thankfully, despite being moved outside and its worn bones, The Convertible had become family. Dad would often boast that is was the most "reliable car he ever owned" and on more than one occasion claimed he would be buried in it. During the next few years, it would be moved from one sub-par storage location to another.
By the mid-'90s I was in high school, and a motorcycle had become my primary transportation. If you've ever been to Oregon in the winter, it's not exactly Easy Rider country. I'm not sure if Dad felt bad for my situation or if I just wore him down, but he allowed me to drive The Convertible during the winter. Winter use turned into spring, and spring into Summer. I loved driving The Convertible, and could now fully appreciate how my folks must have felt when they first drove it. Throughout high school The Convertible would serve me well, providing memorable date nights at the local drive-in, occasional drag racing, and one very scary 360 degree spin on black ice. I'm still not sure how this car survived with me behind the wheel.
As my travel radius increased, I moved on to a commuter car and then on to college. The Convertible was again returned to storage. In Dad's garage, it would sit quietly for another 10 years, pushed to the side and often hidden under a mountain of remodeling supplies and boxes.
Fast forward to 2006, I was out of college, married and living not too far from Dad. My interest in muscle cars had grown, and I was actively looking for a car I could "fix up," maybe even my childhood favorite, a 1969 Dodge Charger. During my regular visits with Dad, I would jokingly ask when he planned to stop using The Convertible as a garage shelf and get it restored. Saying this, I had no real concept of what it took to restore a car. Furthermore, while we were mechanically inclined, we were not skilled mechanics or able to pay to have the work done. After numerous such conversations, Dad threw me a curve ball exclaiming, "Why don't you take it and put your time and money into it?" I had no idea what to say. After all, this was HIS baby! While it wasn't exactly the Charger I had dreamed about, it was part of the family, and I jumped at the offer. Dad's one caveat was that I keep it the original color. I had finally found my muscle car project.
By June 2006 The Convertible was in my garage. While visibly worn out, it was all there. The restoration kicked off right away, but would take five long years to complete. The ups and downs of life happened, and months would go by with little to no progress. I credit my lack of forward movement to the fact that I didn't know what I was doing. Thankfully, I found www.torinocobra.com early on in the process and relied on their forum as my primary knowledge source. Through others' experiences, I was able to learn a great amount about restoring a car, from disassembly, to sourcing parts, to finding the right vendors. In the last two years of the project, I covered a lot of ground, working nights and weekends to refinish, clean and reassemble the various components.
Finally, on July 30, 2011, the restoration was complete. The following day would be the first of many car shows for The Convertible. This particular show was extra special, as my dad and I had been going as spectators since 1980. The plan this year was for us to continue our tradition with my son (4), and once again attend the small-town show as spectators. To make things interesting, Dad had not seen my progress in over a month, and most of the major components had been installed during that time. Now 33 years old, with my son in tow, we approached the outskirts of town. I pulled over and called Dad, asking if he would be outside when we arrived. When we turned the corner into his driveway, his jaw dropped as we slowed and rolled past him. I really can't imagine what was going through his head at the time. After 30 years of ownership and many of those in a tired state, The Convertible was new again, maybe better than new. We went to the car show the next day, no longer as spectators, but as participants. Dad was very proud to show off my work and reminisce with friends about the history of the car. To top off the day, we won first place in the stock '70s class.
I continue to maintain and enjoy The Convertible every chance I get, with the hopes of someday passing it on to my son.
Do you have a collector-car story, photos, or video to share? Head over to My Hemmings today!
From the My Hemmings pages – should she restore Gramma's 1967 Dodge Coronet?
Over on the My Hemmings pages, reader Alex Suriana asks whether
he she should restore his her 1967 Dodge Coronet convertible, a car that his her grandmother bought new. As Alex describes the car, it remains in original condition (apart from the radio) and runs well, but has rust issues. Alex wrote:
I have a '67 Dodge Coronet convertible, and I'm trying to determined if it is worth restoring.
It is a one-owner car; my grandmother ordered it special, and it had approx. 1 mile on it when she took delivery.
It is completely original except for the radio. My stepfather took out the original AM radio and put in a cassette deck. I'm thinking that taking it out and putting the original radio back into it will solve that issue.
It's been garage-kept all of its life; however, there is still rust on the rocker panels and in one of the doors. The inside chrome is a bit corroded; the outside trim is in good shape. It has a few dents, dings and scratches; however, it has never been wrecked. The only major thing that happened to it was a tree limb fell on it and broke the windshield and put a dent in the door.
* Year/Make/Model: 1967 Dodge Coronet 440 (not and R/T)
* Convertible
* Top: White, original, no tears, needs stitching around the back window. The book needs to be stitched in order to drive it w/ the top down. I've been told that's not so, but I'm not taking it off and don't want it flapping about in the breeze.
* Interior: Blue vinyl; has one tear, outside bottom of driver's side; otherwise, no issues
* Bench Seats
* Automatic on the column
* 318 2 barrel small-block; original runs really well, but looks a bit rough. I don't know that it would or would not require rebuilding, other than a radiator and master cylinder replacement, other than sparks and filters and such, everything is as it was when it came off the truck.
* It has the fender tag, blue Mopar card, original owner's manual. I know we have the bill of sale, but I can't lay my hands on it at the moment.
I've been offered $10K for it and have been told it will take about $12K to restore it. I've been told the only reason to hang on to it is for sentimental value; otherwise, I should sell it and let the car buff take it off my hands.
I did notice; however, that there appears to have been only 196 of them made (although that might just be the R/T version).
It's sitting in my garage doing nothing. I feel like if I start putting money into it, I should finish the job; I'm just not sure the car is worth making that type of financial commitment if it's just for sentimentality.
Suggestions/Opinions are greatly appreciated
What do you think? Should Alex leave it as is, should
he she tear it down for a full restoration, or should he she just fix the rust and not touch the rest? For more photos of the droptop, check out Alex's story on My Hemmings.
From the My Hemmings pages: Grandfather's Bronco
Last month's post on Restoration Reunion, the upcoming TV show that aims to reunite people with their old cars, generated quite the response, and we've heard a few compelling stories as a result. One of those stories comes from Mark Bixler, who formed a special bond with his grandfather, Ken Noll, over the 1974 Ford Bronco that Noll bought new. He shared the story on My Hemmings:
My Grandfather bought the Bronco brand new in 1974 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It stayed in the same garage spot all of its life, racking up a total of 37,000 miles. I rode with my grandfather in that Bronco on all our adventures. He was my best friend growing up. I turned 16 in 1998. I learned to drive and get my license in that Bronco. It had a 3-on-the-tree manual transmission. I can still remember him laughing at me from the passenger side as my frustration mounted learning how to hold the clutch on a hill at a stop and then pull away. A few months after my 16th birthday, my grandpa suddenly passed away from a heart attack the day after Christmas. I drove the Bronco a lot in the next years, as it always made me feel close to my grandpa and the memories we had driving the Bronco. My Grandma held onto the Bronco until 2002, when my father found a guy who said he was interested in the 70s style Broncos and wanted to buy it, make it his daily driving vehicle. He promised many things, including driving out to show my Grandma any work that he would do to it. Me being in college and being unable to afford taking care of my grandpa's Bronco myself, I was forced to watch someone else take the Bronco away from where it had sat for nearly 30 years. I was under the impression that this gentleman, who seemed to be a great guy and in good standing with my father, would someday allow me to buy it back after college when I had the means to take care of it. I then learned that this man sold the Bronco shortly after he bought it from my grandmother, made a decent amount of money off of her kindness and where the Bronco is today, I have no clue. I had once tried to track it down, but came up short. I know it had been bought and sold in at least four other states besides PA. I now live in Colorado, newly married two months ago and I'm settled in life and recently thought of trying to find this Bronco, although I have no idea how to do that. I dream of passing the memories along to my future children someday, and also my future grandchildren, getting to smile and laugh as they work their way around a spring clutch trying to get the feel of a 1970s transmission. It would be my dream to have that Bronco back and be reunited and to sit in the seat of a great man who was taken from his grandson's life too early.
Thanks for sharing, Mark, and if anybody out there knows what happened to the Bronco, let us know so we can get you in touch with Mark. If you have your own story about a collector car to share, tell it on My Hemmings.
From the My Hemmings pages – high-school Comet
While it once was common for high-schoolers to raid junkyards for parts and projects, it's a good bet that 99 percent of today's high-schoolers haven't even set foot in a junkyard (not entirely their fault – most junkyards don't let people roam around freely anymore). Cometman63 on the My Hemmings pages, however, is the exception: He dragged this 1963 Mercury Comet S-22 out of a junkyard and plans to get it running to serve as his first car once he gets his license. He writes:
Factory 260 V-8 and – speed car. Back in 1963, this model was only available for 6 months. So I guess this is a pretty rare Comet. The only Comet I've ever seen exactly like mine is here on Hemmings in the Featured Posts. Mine is Carnival Red with red interior. Back in 1965, the car was totaled on a dirt track, but was saved from the scrap yard. Which is why I nicknamed it Christine. It has a rusty exhaust system with rusty Thrush glasspack mufflers. I don't know how old they are, I just know they have been on it since before 1999. The car doesn't have power brakes or power steering, just the oversized S-22 brake drums. I think 10-inch brake drums. I'm the 3rd owner. It's my 1st car and I get my learner's license soon. So I'm starting out different than most teenagers these years; my friends are out bragging about these overrated hatchback Civics they have, others bragging about lifted diesel trucks they might be getting. I've got a real American car! haha!
Sign up at My Hemmings to share a car story, photos, or videos with the rest of Hemmings Nation.


text:
Propelled by dissatisfaction with the country's direction but hampered by doubts about his readiness for the presidency, Barack Obama is forcefully challenging John McCain in four states at the top of the Democrats' target list, while lagging in a fifth, according to Allstate/National Journal polls of battleground states.
The surveys canvassed voters in five of the states carried by President Bush in 2004 that Obama is contesting most aggressively: Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, Ohio, and Virginia.
Among those states, Obama is performing best in New Mexico, where he leads McCain by 7 points, 49 percent to 42 percent. In Florida and Ohio, the two largest electoral prizes on the list, Obama and McCain are running in dead heats: The two are tied at 44 percent in Florida, while McCain leads in Ohio, 42 percent to 41 percent, a statistically insignificant difference. Likewise, in Colorado, Obama leads by a single percentage point, 45 percent to 44 percent. In Virginia, McCain holds a 7-point edge, 48 percent to 41 percent.
The Allstate/National Journal poll is conducted by Ed Reilly and Brent McGoldrick of FD, a business and financial communications company. (Next week, the survey will release results from three of McCain's top targets among states won by Democrat John Kerry in 2004.)
Obama almost certainly cannot get the 270 electoral votes necessary for victory without capturing at least one, and probably more, of these potential tipping-point states. Along with Iowa, where other media polls show Obama maintaining a consistent lead, and Nevada, where surveys generally show a close race that tilts toward McCain, these five battlegrounds rank atop the list of 2004 Bush states where Obama is investing the most time and money.
Similar dynamics are shaping the races in each of the five Bush-won states surveyed. From one direction, Obama is benefiting from a desire for change grounded in widespread disenchantment with Bush. Although the president carried each of these states in 2004 and all except New Mexico in 2000, today a substantial majority of voters in all five disapprove of his performance in office. (About three-fifths of the voters in four of these states are unhappy with the job Bush is doing. In the fifth, Virginia, 56 percent disapprove.) Similarly, the survey found that most voters in all five states lean toward policy positions on energy, the economy, and international affairs predominantly associated with Democrats.
From the other direction, in each state except New Mexico, McCain leads by a double-digit margin when voters are asked which candidate is more prepared to lead the country. Only in New Mexico did more than 38 percent of voters consider Obama better prepared.
For many swing voters, the deciding factor seems to be the relative weight they place on each side of that equation--how they balance their desire for change against their preference for experience.
Denise Poage, a piano teacher in Corrales, N.M., who participated in the survey, said she would give Bush's performance only a "C-minus." But she's backing McCain, despite her worry that the senator from Arizona would too closely follow the outgoing president's policies. The reason? "Senator Obama scares me to death," she says. "I think that he doesn't have enough experience. I think he hasn't played on the world field. I think he has a great promising career, but it's too quick."
Bernadett Roach, a payroll manager for a construction company in Littleton, a suburb south of Denver, is also uncertain that Obama is ready. Yet Roach, an independent who voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, says she plans to vote for the senator from Illinois because she believes that the country needs a new direction, and McCain did not convince her in his acceptance speech earlier this month that he would provide it. "Even though Obama doesn't have the experience per se, and McCain probably does, I think that McCain is a little stagnant," Roach said. "I just don't think that's what our country needs. We ... need to do something now; we are falling apart. And I know it's not going to happen overnight, but I personally didn't feel that McCain had that drive ... to make all these big changes."
The state polls show that the two presidential nominees possess some similar political assets but starkly contrasting personal strengths.
Each has largely consolidated his political base. McCain held at least 82 percent of self-described Republicans in each of the five states (peaking at 92 percent in Virginia). Obama also appears to have reduced the dissension that afflicted him earlier in the campaign. He drew at least four-fifths of Democrats in all five states (topping out at 91 percent in both Colorado and Virginia). Obama faces the greatest defections in Ohio, where the survey found him winning just 81 percent of Democrats overall and only 74 percent of white Democrats.
McCain leads among independents in Florida, Ohio, and Virginia. (That Ohio result is a big turnaround from 2004, when exit polls showed Kerry with a double-digit advantage among Ohio independents.) Obama holds a 10-point lead among independents in New Mexico, and the two men split independents almost evenly in Colorado, where they are the fastest-growing segment of the electorate. These independents could prove especially crucial because the portion who are undecided (22 percent across the five states) is much higher than the percentage of undecideds among Democrats or Republicans.
In follow-up interviews, several independents favoring Obama said they had cooled on McCain as he adopted more-conservative positions on issues such as taxes during his race for the GOP nomination. "I really used to like John McCain, and I always said I would vote for him if he ran for president. But he is starting to sound an awful lot like George Bush, which scares me to death," said Christine Cleland, a Realtor from Bristow, Va. "When it comes down to it, John McCain is more ready to be president, but I don't trust what he's going to do when he gets there."
But many other voters not firmly attached to either party still see McCain as independent and principled. Eleanora Layman, a retired saleswoman in Middletown, Va., says she would have voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton if she won the Democratic nomination but prefers McCain over Obama. "When McCain was a prisoner of war, he learned to love our country. And when he says that he will be working for the people, not us working for him, I really believe he means that," she said.
Still, McGoldrick notes that across these five hotly contested battleground states McCain isn't running as well with conservative white independents--or, for that matter, conservative white Democrats--as he does in the national Diageo/Hotline tracking poll also conducted by FD. "That is costing McCain about 1 to 2 percent in these states," McGoldrick said. "And that could make the difference."
If McCain's greatest personal strength in the survey is experience, one of Obama's strongest suits is empathy. He led in all five states when voters were asked which nominee better "understands the needs and priorities" of people like themselves. In each state but New Mexico, however, Obama's advantage on that question was smaller than McCain's edge on experience.
Demographically, the race showed consistent patterns, too. Among white voters, McCain led by double digits except in Colorado, where he was ahead by 9 percentage points. White men usually provided McCain with crushing advantages (of at least 20 percentage points, for instance, in Colorado, Ohio, and Virginia). Even among white women, Obama faced double-digit deficits except in Colorado, where that voting bloc split evenly.
But Obama receives virtually unanimous support from African-Americans in the three surveyed states with substantial black populations--Florida, Ohio, and Virginia. And in Colorado and New Mexico (states where the black population is too small to be reliably polled), he holds commanding leads among Hispanics. In Florida, where Cuban-Americans traditionally lean Republican, Hispanics tilted more narrowly toward Obama.
One measure of the contest's tightness is the close division among voters that McGoldrick identifies as "everyday Americans." These voters--homeowners from all racial and ethnic backgrounds who range in age from 30 to 60 and whose income is between $50,000 and $100,000--split almost evenly in Colorado, Florida, and Ohio, and leaned toward McCain in Virginia and Obama in New Mexico.
In these critical states, most voters embrace issue positions closer to those advocated by Obama than to those supported by McCain. Asked whether the best way to stimulate the economy is through tax cuts or government spending in areas such as health care and education, majorities in Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, and Ohio picked government spending; a slim plurality in Virginia agreed.
When asked whether the key to safeguarding America's national security is to focus on military strength or on building closer ties with other nations, a majority in all five states picked the latter.
Likewise, asked whether the top priority in addressing the nation's energy challenges should be expanded oil drilling in the U.S., heightened conservation, or greater efforts to develop alternative-energy sources, a plurality of voters in all five states picked alternative energy.
But Obama isn't benefiting from those sentiments, which closely track his own proposals, as much as he might hope. In each state, a majority of the voters who favor new government investments, closer ties with allies, and increased focus on renewable energy, prefer Obama over McCain. But McCain draws even higher percentages among the voters who support the typically Republican positions of tax cuts, focusing on military strength, and expanded drilling.
A similar dynamic is evident in attitudes about Bush. Among the minority of voters who view the president's performance favorably, McCain draws overwhelming support. At least four-fifths of voters in each state who approve of Bush are now backing McCain.
Obama hasn't consolidated those disapproving of Bush to nearly the same extent. His support among these "Bush disapprovers" ranges from highs of 73 percent in New Mexico and 69 percent in Colorado to a low of 63 percent in Florida.
That disparity is partly because Bush now draws negative marks even from many conservative and Republican-leaning voters unlikely to support any Democrat for president. But it also reflects the continuing challenge that Obama faces in trying to convert dissatisfaction with the country's direction into support for his candidacy--and the relative success that McCain has had separating himself from Bush. "I think McCain is going to make quite a few changes," said Layman, who voted for Bush in 2004 but for Democrat Al Gore in 2000. "I think he recognizes how bad the economy is."
Layman's sentiments notwithstanding, anxiety about the economy remains one of Obama's key assets. Although these statewide polls were largely completed before Monday's stock market meltdown, a substantial plurality of voters in each state picked the economy as the nation's top problem. And Obama led McCain in every state among those voters.
They included such people as Joe K., who works for a landscaping business in Columbus, Ohio, and chose not to reveal his last name. He voted for Bush in 2004, but with business "down," he's prepared to mark his ballot for Obama. "I just think we need a change," he said.
At a time of discontent, that desire to shuffle the deck can be overwhelming--almost primal. But in these Bush-won battleground states that could tip the election, the fear that McCain represents too much continuity remains closely balanced against the concern that Obama represents too great of a leap into the unknown.
This article appears in the September 20, 2008 edition of National Journal Magazine Contents.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Latino Life
Elaine Ayala comments on Latino news, cultura y más.
Monthly Archive for June, 2012
Pitting La Llorona against SAWS' Grease Monster
Like bad cholesterol clogging arteries, grease, fat and oil collects in pipes and can lead to sewage backups and flooding. [Read More]
'Hemingway & Fuentes' will start shooting in January
Film centers on creation of the literary classic, "The Old Man and the Sea," and Hemingway's relationship with longtime boat captain Gregorio Fuentes. [Read More]
People en Español Festival billed as Labor Day destination
Organizers say the People en Español Festival will become the Labor Day destination for Latin music lovers. [Read More]
'Glory' leaves big hole in its slice of Mexican history
The Cristeros fought to the death for religious freedom in the face of fierce restrictions by President Calles. [Read More]
Chrysler's Diaz delivers gift and a San Antonio promise
"My heart belongs to San Antonio, and we plan to come back home some day and spend the rest of our lives here." [Read More]


text:
|OS X - Operating System General OS operation information and support
|Post Reply
|New Thread
|Thread Tools
Member Since: Apr 19, 2011
Posts: 33
|QUOTE Thanks
Member Since: May 20, 2008
Location: U.S.
Posts: 31,386
Mac Specs: 13" MB 2.4ghz, 2gig ram, OS 10.7.5
Restarting the computer clears up the problem that can cause the beach balls.
- Nick
- Too many "beachballs", read this: Beachballs
- Computer seems slower than it used to? Read this for some slow computer tips: Speedup
- Almost full hard drive? Some solutions. Out of Space
- Apple Battery Info. Battery
|QUOTE Thanks
Member Since: Nov 28, 2007
Location: Nambucca Heads Australia
Posts: 19,858
Mac Specs: iMac i5 2.7GHz, 16GB memory, OS 10.10.4
Hang on to those original install discs like grim death! Using OS X.7 or later make a bootable USB thumb drive before running Installer!
|QUOTE Thanks
Member Since: Feb 01, 2011
Location: Sacramento, California
Posts: 608
And if your hard drive is around 80% or more full, it may be that your drive is, for all intents and purposes, full, and your Mac can't run properly.
If neither of those are the problem, I'd run all of the suggested routine maintenance here:
OS X Routine Maintenance
OS X Maintenance And Troubleshooting
If that doesn't help, I'd uninstall any anti-virus software, and disable any login items located at:
System Preferences --> Accounts --> Login Items
If that doesn't help, try this:
Run Activity Monitor (in your Applications/Utilities folder), and
click on the "%CPU header", and then click on the triangle in the %CPU
header so that things are ordered in that column from largest to
least. Make sure that All Processes is chosen in the drop down menu at the top of the window.
See what is running that is using the most CPU time. If it
has a really high number, this is likely to be what is causing your
Leave Activity Monitor open while you work, and during one of the
times when your Mac has slowed to a crawl switch to Activity Monitor
and see if something is using up all of your processor's time.
Let me know what you find.
Likely candidates are a corrupted
Spotlight database, a corrupted Safari database, a bad stay-resident/
startup utility, etc. I can help you clear any of these problems
once we narrow it down. Whatever it is, it should be fairly easy to
More info:
Mac OS X Beachballs
Macintosh OS X Beachballs!
Randy B. Singer
Mac OS X Routine Maintenance http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
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text:
Once a year, Girl Scouts venture into the entrepreneurial world to learn business and financial skills and earn money to fund their Girl Scouting goals. We hope you will help Girl Scouts build a lifetime of skills and confidence.
Cookies are available for $4.00 with inital orders beginning January 30th from any Girl Scout.
Don't know a Girl Scout?
• Download the Cookie Finder app. via girlscoutcookies.org
• Call 804-746-0590 xtn. 316 to schedule a booth sale at your office.
• Come by the retail shop at 4900 Augusta Avenue between March 23rd – April 15th.
Summer/Fall 2014 Edition Now Available!
Quick Look is a quarterly publication of the Girl Scouts of the Commonwealth of Virginia (GSCV).
The information in this publication is aimed at helping girls and volunteers plan their next great adventure.
All activities detailed in Quick Look are available for registration via the Commonwealth Online Membership
Please note that this is a static document and as such, several new offerings have become available since it
Questions? We've got answers!
GSCV Help Desk
1 (800) 4 SCOUT 4 ext. 316


text:
Home Kent Business County News Article
An easy-access savings account with the best rate in the market has been launched for customers visiting branches of a bank in the county.
The Best Buy Easy Access Account launched by Kent Reliance offers 1.5% interest, the top rate of any account of its kind in the UK, according to independent comparison site Moneyfacts.
It requires a minimum opening balance of £1,000 but features quick access to funds, allows additional deposits and has no minimum age.
It is only available in Kent and Sussex branches of the Chatham-based lender, whose parent company One Savings Bank launched on the London Stock Market in June.
Sales and marketing director John Eastgate said: "We're delighted to offer savers in the region the best buy Easy Account currently available in the market today.
"We don't believe in offering teaser or introduction rates. We wanted to provide a flexible and transparent Easy Access account with a competitive rate of interest."
It comes a week after the company launched a new range of NISAs, including a two-year flexible fixed rate NISAs, with an annual gross interest of 2.1%.
The company also held a week of activities in support of charity Demelza, including a walk-to-work scheme, raffles and fancy dress.
A bake off including chief executive Andy Golding helped to raise a total of £2,413.62, half of which was money matched by the bank.
Mr Eastgate added: "We're delighted with the effort and support shown by all the team at Kent Reliance for this special local charity.
"Many of our staff are from the local community so we are very aware of the remarkable work performed by Demelza's hospices and with the help and support of the local community, they can continue to provide the best possible care for the children of Kent."
Click here for more news from Kent Business.
Click here for more news from around the county.
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text:
Illinois Public Media
All articles tagged Auction
Murray Wise Lifetime of Achievement
Going Once, Going Twice, Nevermind.
Page 1 of 1 pages
WILL Highlights
WILL News wins PRNDI Award for "Unmet Needs" Radio Doc
The 2014 radio documentary, produced by former WILL staff and hosted by Scott Cameron, won second place in the Long Form Documentary category among medium-sized stations.
WILL Ag Director Dave Dickey retires
He carried on the farm broadcasting tradition, while innovating on the Internet.
Brian Moline named WILL 'Morning Edition' host
Longtime WDWS sports and talk host will join WILL Radio staff on June 1.


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|Sport Home > Nation
Pagarani bowls dream spell in Blenheim
22 April 2012
Yogi Group skipper Shiva Pagarani bowled the dream spell of his life to prise out seven wickets against Interface Transworld in the Blenheim Champions Trophys last league match in the tournament which is sponsored by Blenheim Energy and conducted by the Dubai Cricket Council at the Sevens cricket grounds.
Interface batted first and had a good start with their openers Adnan Arif 28, and Nalin Khaitan 20, putting on 55 runs for the opening stand until Nalin was picked up by Salman Faris.
Adnan followed soon as he was stumped off the Shahzad Manna after his patient innings.
Fahad Tariq 22, and Saad Aslam then had a small partnership of 29 runs until Fahad became Shiva's first victim.
Shiva Pagarani coming on as the sixth bowler tasted immediate success as he first picked up Fahad off his second ball of his first over having him caught by Shadeep Silva at long-on. Buoyed by his first ball success he bowled Saad all ends up off his third ball.
He was bowling with a lot of control and guile flighting the ball well and made life miserable for the Interface youngsters and the slowness of the wicket also helped him as he called on all his experience to lure batsman after batsman. Shiva then had Ramveer Rai caught behind by wicket-keeper Anoop Ravi for a duck of his fifth delivery to end his first over with three wickets.
He continued to torment the Interface side having Jagrit Anand caught at long-on by Shadeep for 18, while Wasim Bari was caught at short fine leg.
He then had Fawad Ghafoor caught at deep mid-wicket by Ayoub Inayat and bagged his seventh wicket having Anill Adnani stumped by wicketkeeper Anoop Ravi to single handedly run through the Interface batting bowling a super spell to bag seven wickets for 27 runs in 7.1 overs and skittle Interface out for 136 runs in 34.1 overs.
Interface also hit back picking up four Yogi wickets. as Jagrit Anand had openers Salman Faris 21, Swapnil Patil 13, and Shaiman Butt for 05, while Anil Adnani picked up Ayoub Inayat for a duck to see Yogi group's reply stuttering at 51 runs for four wickets.
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Unlocking the Key to Deep Sleep
By Sarah Fenske
Making the Ferguson Commission Matter
By Danny Wicentowski
My Fake Boyfriend Became a Real-Life Crush
By Lindsay Toler
Rep. Jeffrey Pogue Bill Would Ban Unisex Bathrooms
By Danny Wicentowski
Darren Wilson Gives Speech to Nonprofit
By Danny Wicentowski
Angel Stewart and Other Victims of Violence Ask for Mercy
By Jessica Lussenhop
Obama Praises St. Louis' LaunchCode
By Lindsay Toler
By Lindsay Toler
They were sex offenders, waiting for their state-mandated group therapy at Clark's Behavioral Science Institute.
"He thought he scared them," she explains. "He probably saw their faces -- they are not supposed to be in the same room with children." She chuckles again. "Sometimes they think we set them up, but we don't."
Clark sits down in a straight-backed armchair, feet flat on the floor, knees well apart, braced for anything. Her red pantsuit clashes with the room's powder-blue serenity, and she glares at the floral sofa. "I hate pillows," she says. "When I picked that out, I didn't realize it had all those pillows."
She played college basketball, and even at age 48 she has an athlete's physical presence -- heavier now but solid, without squish or billow. As for her personality, it's as bold and sure as a slam-dunk, and it vibrates with the same energy. Too restless to sit behind a desk, she usually roves around the office, loses her coffee along the way, finds it hours later, gulps it cold. She can spin every detail of BSI's $500,000-a-year operation on one fingertip.
Clark always dreamed of owning her own business. She started BSI in 1988 after six years spent directing Missouri's first sex-offender program, known as MoSOP, for the state corrections department. "I wrote the Missouri Sex Offender Program," she says proudly. "Nobody knows the history of where all this came from but me." Her eyes darken. "They're changing the program now. Jim [LaBundy, chief of sex-offender services] thinks I do 'shame-based therapy.'"
Tilting her head, she adopts a syrupy tone: "'Oh, they are so ashamed.'" Then she leans forward. "No, they're not," she says. "They're caught."
Though "sex offender" reads as a single vile concept, the category takes in everyone from the brutal rapist who forces sex on strangers in a sadistic lust for power to the drunken fraternity pledge who coulda sworn his date was willing. A sex offender is anyone convicted of a sex offense -- from indecent exposure to sodomizing a five-year-old. Unless they're classified as sexual predators, offenders eventually wind up back in the community. If they have served their full sentences, they need only register with the state. But if they're on probation or parole, they're required by the Missouri Department of Corrections to receive therapy until they're "off paper" -- released from state supervision.
That's where Marie Clark comes in. Along with a handful of other providers in the St. Louis area, Clark offers group-therapy sessions for every offender who's still "on paper." (Clark works with about one-fifth of the estimated 450 sex offenders now in treatment here.) Offenders must pay for their own treatment; BSI charges the going rate of $150 per month. Therapy typically goes on for about five years. There are also sixteen-week "nonoffender" courses, which must be completed by a "supervisor" -- a friend, relative or paid stranger who agrees to take charge of the offender in public situations. In addition, Clark works as a consultant, presenting workshops all over the state. She won't reveal her fee for these presentations, but consultants with far less cachet command well over $1,000 a day, plus travel expenses.
Past participants say BSI's therapy sessions can be brutal. Fred Jones (a pseudonym) says that at his first BSI session, "Marie barged in, handed this guy a piece of paper and said, 'Sign this.' It was a confession that he had skipped sessions and withheld funds from BSI. He looked at her and said, 'None of this is true.' She threw the paper down, took her pen and threw it across the room and ordered him to crawl over, get the pen and crawl back to sign the paper. Then she started mentioning her close relationship with his parole officer. She got him so scared that he crawled over and signed it."
Clark denies the account: "I've never done anything like that, never in my life! And 'withheld funds'? You can't enter our office without paying. It says on the wall: 'Payment due at time of service.' You don't pay, we won't see you. You can't come in."
She does, however, recall other incidents Jones relates. For instance, the time she "came into group yelling at the top of her lungs," telling an offender who'd gone with his supervisor to the St. Louis Science Center -- technically in violation of the agreement he'd signed with BSI not to go anywhere that children frequent -- "that he couldn't possibly be that stupid and she was sure he had victims left behind at the Science Center now." He says she'd "point to people and shout, 'Child molester! Pedophile! Exhibitionist!' and say how despicable they were. When one man was recounting his criminal act, which was a misdemeanor, and was very much ashamed of himself, she said, 'You should be disgusted, I hope you vomit all over that white shirt you're wearing.'"
Sponsor Content


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Host Seth MacFarlane's Oscars night performance was met with laughs ... and lengthy, thorough critiques.
But there's someone who thinks the funny man did a perfect job – or should we say purr-fect?
"My cat said the show went well," the Family Guy creator, 39, playfully Tweeted.
Leave it to his feline to hiss at buzz his jokes were racist, sexist and generally tasteless. Still, his furry companion is about to be disappointed.
Asked by a fan if he plans on taking the Oscars stage again, MacFarlane Tweeted, "No way. Lotta fun to have done it, though."
Seth MacFarlane's Oscars Gig Praised ... By His Cat
Courtesy Seth MacFarlane; Inset: Kevin Winter/Getty
updated 02/26/2013 AT 05:30 PM EST
•originally published 02/26/2013 AT 11:30 AM EST


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ID Requirements
Alaska Marine Highway customers will be required to show proper Valid Government ID upon acceptance of tickets at the terminal or the reservations office ticket counter and once again at the ramp / gangway prior to boarding the vessel. Random ticket and ID checks may be conducted onboard the vessel.
Valid Government ID is defined as one piece of photo identification issued by a government authority such as a state or provincial driver's license, passport, official government issued identification, or military ID
Prince Rupert and Canada Border Crossing
After June 1, 2009 all U.S. citizens travelling through Canada will be required to show their passport. Driver's licenses or birth certificates alone may no longer be accepted as proof of citizenship. Traveling onboard an AMHS vessel between Bellingham, Washington and Ketchikan, Alaska these rules and restrictions do not apply, although the vessel travels through Canadian waters.
Starting June 1, 2009, Canadian citizens will be required to present a valid passport, a NEXUS or Free and Secure Trade (FAST) card, or an enhanced driver's license/enhanced identification card when seeking to enter the United States at its land or water crossings. For more information, visit the Canada Border Services Agency web site.
U.S. residents who are not citizens should carry their Alien Registration Receipt Cards. Permanent residents of Canada who are not Canadian citizens should have their Landed Immigrant Visas. Canadian customs officials will require travelers to show proof of sufficient funds for the trip. Motorists may be asked to show their vehicle registration card or proof of title and liability insurance coverage.
If you are traveling with a child not in your full legal custody, please check with a U.S. or Canada customs office about additional paperwork that may be required.
Personal Information
The Alaska Marine Highway may collect applicable personal information about its customers such as full legal name, date of birth, citizenship, address and contact information. This information is used to comply with US Coast Guard requirements and may be used to contact passengers in the event of a schedule change or in regards to travel arrangements.
Privacy Protection
Personal information provided to the Alaska Marine Highway System is used for identification purposes required by Homeland Security. Our privacy commitment includes ensuring the accuracy, confidentiality and security of our customers' personal information. Your e-mail address may be used to occasionally inform you about special events and fares only if you indicate to us on the customer information form that you would like to receive this information. The Alaska Marine Highway System and the State of Alaska maintain secure servers for all personal information and payment transactions and continuously monitor online security.
Unaccompanied Minors
Children under 12 years of age are not allowed passage unless accompanied by a person 19 years of age or older. Children ages 12-15 must be accompanied by a person 19 years of age or older of have written permission for passage signed by their parent or guardian. An Unaccompanied Minor Form can be found here or at your local terminal.
Schedule Changes
The State of Alaska reserves the right to alter, revise, or cancel schedules and rates without prior notice and assumes no responsibility for delays and/or expenses due to such modifications. You can get schedule updates by visiting our Schedule Changes page or by calling the AMHS reservation call center at 1-800-642-0066.
Payment and Cancellation
For reservations made more than 28 days from the date of departure, payment is due 14 days from the date of booking. If the booking date is less than 28 days prior to the departure date-payment is due 14 days prior to travel. (Ex: if the booking date is 18 days prior to travel, the customer is allowed 4 days to pay or the booking will be auto cancelled.) If the booking is made less than 14 days prior to the departure date - payment is due at the time of booking. Payment must be made by the payment due date or the reservation will be automatically cancelled.
Online Payments
Once your reservation has been confirmed via e-mail, telephone, or in person, you can pay for your reservation online over our secure server. To make payment online you will need to have your itinerary number and the last name of the itinerary holder or the customer number that you received when your reservation was confirmed. If you don't have this information, please contact reservations at 1-800-642-0066.
Payment by Mail
You may send in your payment by mail using a cashier's check or money order for the amount in full, in U.S. funds. Personal checks cannot be accepted unless drawn on an Alaskan bank. No counter checks are accepted. Please include your itinerary and the name of the itinerary holder with your payment. Payments should be mailed to:
Alaska Marine Highway System — Reservations
P.O. Box 112505, 6858 Glacier Highway
Juneau, AK 99811-2505
Payment by Phone
Credit card payment can be made by phone through our reservations agents toll free at 1-800-642-0066 during Juneau Call Center business hours (7am-5pm, Monday-Friday). Visa, MasterCard, and Discover credit cards are accepted (some restrictions may apply).
Payment in Person
You may pay for your reservation at any AMHS ferry terminal or ticket office during their hours of operation. Terminals are open during check-in times prior to ferry arrivals, while vessels are in port and for a short time after ferry departures.
Cancellations and Changes
To make changes or to cancel an itinerary, contact our reservation call center at 1-800-642-0066, or your local ferry terminal. Cancellation charges will be applied when any cancellation is made within 14 days of sailing resulting in a reduction in the prepaid amount. The penalty is 15% of the unused portion. A $10 change fee will be applied when any change is made to a vehicle itinerary, unless the change results in an increase of the value of the itinerary.
Automatic Cancellation
The AMHS reservation system will automatically cancel your booking if travel is not paid for by the payment due date.
Check - In Times
Passengers traveling without vehicles are required to check in 2 hours prior to departure in Bellingham, and 1 hour prior to departure at all other ports. Passengers must pass through security inspection at least thirty minutes prior to boarding, and must be on board the vessel no later than 15 minutes before departure. Any walk-on passenger who has not checked in, been screened and ready to be boarded at least fifteen (15) minutes prior to the scheduled sailing time may be denied passage for that sailing.
As in all matters pertaining to vessel operation, the Master of the vessel has the prerogative to refuse or allow sailing to any passenger. If in the judgment of the Master, walk-on passengers can be properly screened and boarded, outside of this fifteen-minute window, it shall be permitted.
Walk-on passengers who miss a sailing due to this boarding cut-off policy and who wish to travel at a later time will be processed normally without special priority.
During the Summer Season, May - September, vehicles with reservations are required to check in at the terminal prior to posted vessel departures as follows:
- 3 hours – Bellingham, Prince Rupert and Cross Gulf Sailings (Whittier/Juneau)
- 2 hours – Skagway, Haines, Juneau, Ketchikan, Homer and Kodiak
- 1.5 hours – Petersburg and Valdez
- 1 hour – All other ports
During our Winter Season, October - April, sailings may have an adjusted check-in time. Please confirm your check-in times if you are unsure.
These check-in times are assigned so that the vehicles can be arranged in the boarding lanes for safe and efficient loading, and for security screening. Passengers with vehicles that do not arrive on time may find that their reserved space has been given to someone waiting on the standby list.
Departure times at Sitka vary according to the tides and are set by the vessel master. Call the Sitka terminal at 907-747-8737 one hour before the arrival time listed in the schedule for a confirmed check-in/departure time.
Vehicle Restrictions for the Port of Gustavus
Passengers traveling to and from Whittier are advised to check the Whittier Tunnel website for a schedule of when the tunnel is open to vehicle traffic. You may be unable to make your sailing if you do not arrive at the tunnel at a time when it is open. Bicycle and foot traffic is prohibited through the tunnel, and there are vehicle size and other restrictions of which you should be aware before traveling through the tunnel. For a recording of the base schedule, call the Whittier Tunnel toll-free at 1-877-611-2586.
Please visit our Transporting A Vehicle page for more information.
If vehicle or cabin space is not available on your preferred sailing date, a reservations agent may be able to place your request on a waitlist. Waitlists are limited to specific routes and may not be available for your intended sailing. Waitlisted items are processed as cancellations occur and space availability is monitored up to 2 weeks before sailing departures. Once space has been confirmed, you will be contacted by one of our agents. Some restrictions may apply; for more information or to be added to a waitlist, please contact a reservations agent toll-free 1-800-642-0066.
Standby lists are operated by terminal and vessel staff on the day of sailing. Passengers arriving to board a sold-out sailing without confirmed vehicle space may inquire with terminal staff to be put on their standby list.
Cabin requests that have not been confirmed at the time of sailing, may sign up on the purser's standby list kept on board. Once the sailing is underway, the purser will assign any unoccupied cabins to those on standby.
Bellingham Departures
Customers who wish to be added to the standby list for a vehicle space departing from Bellingham can call the Bellingham terminal directly at 1-360-676-8445. Standby requests will be taken the Monday prior to that Friday or Saturday sailing. Please leave a message if no one is available to take your phone call and staff will return phone calls as soon as possible.
Bellingham terminal office hours of operation:
- Monday 9:00 am - 12:00 pm
- Thursday 12:00 pm - 4:30 pm
- Friday 7:00 am - 6:30 pm
Baggage Limitation
Walk on passengers are allowed up to 100 pounds of hand luggage. Baggage carts are driven from the terminals to the vessel car deck to assist passengers with baggage. Baggage handling is not provided, and AMHS is not responsible for lost, stolen or damaged baggage. Passengers are responsible for the handling and safety of their luggage. There is no weight limit on luggage carried in or on a vehicle. Coin-operated storage lockers are available aboard most ships for storage of small hand-carried items.
Unaccompanied baggage is not allowed on board AMHS vessels. It is considered freight and must be shipped via a commercial carrier or U.S. mail. All baggage and carry-on items are subject to security screening.
Tickets can be picked up at any AMHS terminal; however, printed tickets are not required for check-in. A printed copy of your travel itinerary can be sent via fax or email to you by a reservations agent or can be printed through the View an Itinerary page. Tickets will then be issued at the departure terminal prior to travel.
Alaska law is very specific about smoking in public facilities, including AMHS ferries. Smoking is restricted to the outside decks and posted areas only.
Alaska Marine Highway System thanks you for your patronage and appreciates the kind gestures you show our staff by desiring to leave gratuities. However, because our crewmembers are State of Alaska employees, they are prohibited by Alaska State law from accepting tips.
"A public officer may not accept, receive, or solicit compensation for the performance of official duties or responsibilities from a person other than the State." (AS 39.52.120(b) (2))
A "public officer" is defined as a public employee. Please do not offer tips to our employees. Tip money left behind goes into the State general fund. Again, thank you for your generosity - it is our pleasure to serve you, your smile is reward enough!
Transporting Firearms
Walk-on passengers traveling with legal firearms or weapons on AMHS vessels are required to check these items with an AMHS employee. All firearms must be unloaded and ammunition stowed separately from the firearms. Unloaded firearms may be securely locked in passengers' vehicles.
Please note that new laws regulating the import, export, and possession of firearms have been implemented in Canada and the U.S. Please check with Canadian or U.S. customs offices prior to transporting a firearm into these countries. You can get more information on the by visiting the Canada Border Services Agency website, the Canadian Firearms Centre website, and for U.S. regulations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms website.
Restricted Materials (HAZMAT)
Explosives, highly flammable materials, corrosives, etc. may not be transported on any AMHS vessel. Bottled gas containers, such as those used by recreational vehicles, are permitted on board AMHS vessels, but they must be turned off and sealed by an AMHS employee before being transported. For information concerning hazardous materials for non-commercial shippers, see the Hazardous Materials Information document.
Passenger Conduct
The State reserves the right to refuse passage to any person apparently under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or any person whose conduct would be considered dangerous or objectionable to other passengers. Any persons who attempts to gain passage in a fraudulent manner, or any vehicle in an unsafe condition, will be denied boarding. It is a misdemeanor crime to stowaway on a State ferry. Stowaways will be removed from the ferry at the next port and will be prosecuted.
Pet Policy
Pets must remain on the car decks of all AMHS vessels, and be cared for by their owners. This means they must stay either in vehicles or in suitable pet carriers (not provided by AMHS), which must also remain on the car deck. Pets are not allowed above the car deck or in passenger cabins. Owners may visit their pets on the car deck only while vessels are in port. Due to United States Coast Guard regulations, passengers are not allowed on the car deck while vessels are underway, unless accompanied by an AMHS employee. Accompanied pet calls are announced by the purser approximately three times a day on longer sailings between Bellingham and Ketchikan, and between Juneau and Whittier.
Dogs, cats, and other household pets cost $25 to transport to and from Bellingham, and $10 to transport to and from Prince Rupert. There is no charge for pet travel between other AMHS ports or on any route for a certified Service Animal that is traveling with a disabled person. Service Animals do require prior approval from the Traffic Manager so that shipboard staff can be properly notified.
Certain small birds at risk of death due to car deck temperatures also must have prior approval from the Traffic Manager to be allowed in passenger's cabin. A cash only damage deposit is required.
If entering the State, animals must meet the State of Alaska requirements. Following is a reproduction of this regulation:
Sec. 03.55.070. Transporation of Animals on State Ferries: Health Certificates (a) No animals may be transported into the State aboard a ferry operated by the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) of the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities unless the animal's owner, custodian, or attendant possesses a valid health certificate for the animal. This certificate shall accompany the animal or be in the possession of the animal's owner, custodian, or attendant aboard the ferry and shall be presented when requested by an employee of the State Ferry System at the time the owner, custodian, or attendant makes arrangements to transport the animal, boards the ferry with the animal, or at any other time.
Penalties for non-compliance vary from state to state, but may include animal quarantine or prohibited entry of the animal into the state. Please view for more information on other state veterinarian offices.
A certificate of health is not required when traveling between Alaskan ports. For travel by road through Canada, proof of a rabies vaccination within the last three years is required, but passengers should check directly with Canadian Customs for additional information.
Find a Sailing
The Quick Search tool is great when you understand the regions in which vessels operate. After reviewing the results, a link is provided to begin a reservation.
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New bosses to rock The Boat House pub in Tewkesbury
Posted: October 16, 2012|
THE new landlords of The Boat House want to improve Tewkesbury's nightlife to give people "the variety they deserve."
Kym Simpson and Richard Trebble have only been at the helm of the riverside pub in Mythe Road for a couple of weeks, but already have big plans for the venue to become "the place to be seen."
The couple, who are both 23, have experience of working in the pub/restaurant trade and say they are "in touch with what people want."
The pub will have three nights of entertainment a week with plenty of variety.
Kym said: "We immediately saw the potential of the pub and knew we couldn't miss the opportunity to take it on.
"There's just not a great deal to do in town at night, people get bored and are forced to go home to bed. We want to change that, we want to make it a lively and upbeat pub with plenty of entertainment."
The pub will host open mic nights on Thursdays, late-night discos on Fridays and live bands on Saturdays.
Kym said: "People deserve to have a better nightlife. They can get up to dance or just sit back and relax with a beer.
"We are a young couple, we know what our generation want for a good night out."
Kym and Richard have already sound-proofed the building and are re-decorating to give the pub "a modern-day approach."
A new menu of British pub food favourites has been introduced. With a four-year-old daughter called Ruby, the couple is also keen to reach out to families with a coffee morning for parents and children.
Kym was previously the assistant manager at The Nottingham Arms in Tewkesbury and Richard was a dairy farmer before working in the kitchen of Pizza Express.
The Boat House closed earlier this year. Previous bosses Mike and Wendy Wakeman walked away after spending £250,000 to transform the previously run-down King John's Tavern, which was notorious for noise and anti-social behaviour problems, into a family restaurant.
Kym added they would turn it into a "safe and friendly" venue with door staff to ensure that problems at the site remain a thing of the past.


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!Ole! Send Mexican recipes for April 24
In honor of Cinco de Mayo, send us your favorite Mexican dish for the Recipe Box of April 24.
Post recipes on the Recipe Box blog at blog.timesunion.com/recipebox. Please include your name, address, phone number and number of servings. (And please spell out measurements: teaspoon, tablespoon, cups, etc. It's our style.)
Don't forget grain recipes for April 17. And it's not too early to think about savory pie recipes for May 1.