Arschlochs Car Club Show April 2014

The Independence, Missouri Chapter of the Arschlochs Car Club is hosting the Sprint Fling Car Show and Dance April 26, 2014 at the VFW Post 1000 in Independence. Registration is $20 and includes a free dash plaque for the first 100 cars entered. All vehicles pre 1972 are welcome. There will be plenty of cool cars, neat motorcycles, fun, prizes, drink specials, good friends and enemies alike. Mark your calendar to join us.

So Long Buddy Bronson - Working Fridays is for Suckers!

Two years ago we went to the 4th of July Parade in Sugar Creek. I always enjoy the old time parade and they still throw candy to the kids (things are slow to change in "The Creek"). This year was a great day and we watched from the sidewalk of a duplex on Sterling. Just as the parade was about over, a man in the group next to us got a phone call that really upset him. He began shouting and crying very loudly. He kept screaming "No Tyler, NO!" He dropped the phone and his lawn chair and began laying on the ground pounding his fists and crying madly. I wasn't sure what was going on. Wesley was very upset and began crying also and we got our chairs and headed home. Wesley kept asking me throughout the day why the man was so upset. The only answer I had was that he had got a phone call with some bad news. Later in the day I got a call from Grandpa John that shed more light, "Did you hear about Buddy's wife and daughter?" he asked. He filled me in and I watched the news and learned what was going on. The man next to us at the Parade was a family member who was there to watch Buddy riding his scooter in the Parade. On the other end of the phone was Tyler Bronson, Buddy's stepson. The police came and got Buddy out of the Parade and told him he needed to go home. He shut off his Harley Topper and went back to Belton to a day that changed his life forever.

I had known who Buddy was in the car scene for years, but never really talked to him. His case made national news because of the status of the person that killed his wife and daughter. After a few months I friended him on Facebook and we exchanged posts.

Then in January of 2012 my mother committed suicide. It was a very bad scene and left me with many questions and mixed feelings on the whole subject. There were people at her memorial service who were fighting for their lives to battle cancer and other diseases and here my mother ended her own life in a final act of childish self centeredness. I felt sorry for people like Carol Whittle, who made it to the service and later passed from cancer that she fought to the bitter end, life is not fair.

Buddy was also at the Memorial for mom. I reached out to him and asked him if things like this made him angry? I wondered if he saw someone who was so unappreciative of life and casually threw away the future and made him wish his wife and daughter were given the same choice. He told me, "Jeremy, this is a crazy world and you can't figure out why things happen. It will drive you crazy trying to make sense of it. Just keep on going and living your life."

So I did, and we kept up on Facebook and in person at various events. I met him for lunch recently in the West Bottoms and we discussed my upcoming trip to Austin, Texas for the Lone Star Roundup. He was in good spirits and he assured me we would make it. He told me of a time where he decided not to drive his Studebaker to a car show in Salina, Kansas because it was far away and very hot. He was going down the highway in his late model daily driver and came upon a full-haired gentleman piloting his Caddy-powered '34 Ford down the highway with all the windows down. "There was John rolling down the highway in a car that you couldn't find a part for in a 200 mile radius with no air conditioning enjoying the day. If John doesn't give a shit then neither should we. I have driven one of my old cars to every show since," he said.

During the Lone Star Roundup we exchanged various messages as I told him of a Studebaker passing us on the highway (we were going 80) and how much fun we were having. Then his messages stopped. I didn't think much of it until the next morning when I saw everyone's comments on Facebook and how Buddy had been killed, just like his wife and daughter were, the night before. I was quite upset to learn this, but there was nothing I could do.

I went to the funeral and paid my respects. I enjoyed knowing Buddy, and will always remember him. I will also try to not spend so much time analyzing life. Sometimes you just need to get into your old car and go down the highway.

KCTA Drag Strip Front Street - Kansas City

Grandpa John is getting ready to have a big sale of signs he has collected over the last 50 years. It took over 9 hours to photograph them all. Should be an interesting sale.

This sign is from the old drag strip in Kansas City. In the 1970s he found it wadded up in a ball in some brush near where the drag strip entrance was. He drove by there daily on his way to work at Chemagro (which is now Bayer). KCTA was the Kansas City Timing Association. He has some real gems from the area. Here is a link to his upcoming auction on April 14.

Gun Appreciation Day at Bass Pro - Independence, Missouri

I decided to take a trip out to Bass Pro yesterday and see who showed up for Gun Appreciation Day. It was an interesting crowd of basically people like me who have a job, take care of their families and are concerned about their country.

Wesley asked me a few nights ago why I keep watching the news so much. I told him, "These are historic times that you and I will discuss a lot in years to come."

The shelves were empty and the gun cases almost bare. Kevin Jamison (a very brilliant man) spoke to the crowd and several groups were on hand with fliers on different legislative issues.

I was curious at the large presence of the Independence Police. Not sure what they were expecting to happen, Bass Pro was probably the safest place to be in town yesterday. They may have expected some anti-gun protestors, but I didn't see any.

There is at least one attractive person in his photo of me and Cos. 

Kevin Jamison speaking to the group.

The shelves were bare at Bass Pro.

The Kansas City Playboy Club

I have always enjoyed collecting things that are from old bars etc. I started picking up a few things years ago from the Kansas City Playboy Club. It was located at 11th and Baltimore in what is now the Mark Twain Tower. I was too young to have ever gone to it, but my parents went a few times. According to my mother it was a very classy place and was quite formal. It was not a strip club or anything like that.

People who went there had keys for their accounts in the early days. Later they had metal credit type cards. I have two keys from KC. They were very hard to find, but I actually found two.

Arschlochs Car Club Grants Charter to Independence, Missouri Chapter

We are proud to announce we have received our official charter from the Mutter Chapter of the Arschlochs Car Club located in Frankfurt, Germany. The charter officially established the Independence, Missouri chapter of the Arschlochs on October 27, 2012.

The Mutter Chapter was founded in 1967 in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1969 the first US charter was granted to a chapter in Brownsville, Brooklyn New York. From there the club has expanded slowly over the past 45 plus years to include chapters in Detroit, Michigan, Oakland, California and most recently Independence, Missouri.

"We are glad to be part of the Arschlochs Car Club and have been prospecting for the past year. It was a challenging process with all the obstacles involved in proving yourself to the Mutter Chapter in Germany and those Brownsville bastards, but we made it," says Joe Boos, president of the Independence, Missouri chapter.

There Are Still Good People in the World - in Des Moines, Iowa

Occasionally I hustle a few cars on eBay. I usually charge 10% to list and manage the sale. We have had some pretty wild stories over the years. There was the 1932 Ford Coupe that Grandpa John bought for $20,000 and we sold it for over $48,000. That was the closest I have ever come to him kissing me as an adult. When we found out he didn't have to pay taxes on it he cried (tears of joy).

There have been ups and downs with the economy so I have stopped listing stuff lately. Grandpa John turned up a 1963 LeMans recently that belonged to our friend Butch who died three years ago. I had seen the car when he was working on it, but had forgotten it was still in the garage of his widow Shirley.

So we agreed to sell it for Shirley. She had a local offer of $12,000 for it and I thought we could do better. Most people from KC are cheap (like us) and won't pay east coast or west coast prices. We wanted Shirley to get the most possible so we put it online.

It ended up selling for $16,900 to a man in Des Moines, Iowa. He came down to look at it and he was just the person we were looking for. He was the right age and had a nice vehicle and a Goodguys hat on. After a few years of doing this you learn to recognize the type of buyer you are looking for. If some is asking you if the air conditioner blows cold on an old car they are generally not the right person. That is a question for a late model used car purchase. Cold air conditioning is not a deciding factor on an antique car.

So the buyer came down after the auction ended and paid for the car. I kept $900 from the price and gave Shirley a discount on my usual commission. Butch was always nice to me since I was a kid and she is a good person. I went home and gave Grandpa John $100 and gave Abby $200 leaving me $600 for the Marlin 336 rifle I had been wanting.

A week later, as I was polishing my new stainless lever-action cowboy rifle, I got a call from Grandpa John. "You are never going to believe this. The man who bought the LeMans got it home and decided it was such a nice care he felt it was really worth $20,000. So he sent Shirley another $3,100 to make up the difference."

He was right, I couldn't believe it. That was like something out of a corny movie. I was really surprised. That is the first time that has ever happened in my 41 years of wheeling and dealing (Grandpa John made me bargain for my dinner as an infant. He claimed it built character).

So there are a few good people in the world. Not many, but one of them is in Des Moines, Iowa. I hope he enjoys the LeMans. It really is a nice old car. Butch would be happy to see it with the new owner.