Early U.S. presidents were fishing and hunting devotees

In its January 1923 issue, Forest and Stream magazine ranked the U.S. presidents on the basis of their interests and abilities as “outdoorsmen.” Editors determined that almost all of the first 29 commanders in chief were “devotees of the rod and the gun.”

Without question, Theodore Roosevelt was the “greatest hunter” among the presidents, said reporter Alexander Stoddart. Roosevelt was the only president to range outside the United States – taking safaris in Africa and expeditions to South America – to hunt big game.

Roosevelt nearly got himself killed, however, when he was charged by an angry bull moose in 1915 near Sainte-Anne River in Quebec, Canada.

Roosevelt’s foray into the realm of hunting devilfish (giant manta rays) with harpoons and lances in 1917 qualified more as hunting than as fishing, according to Stoddart’s definition of the two sports.

This “ruling” led Stoddart to select Stephen Grover Cleveland as the “greatest of fishing presidents,” with Chester Alan Arthur a close second.

In an article for Sports Illustrated magazine, published in 1956, John Durant wrote: “It’s difficult to think of the slow-moving, corpulent President Grover Cleveland, who weighed 240 pounds and loathed exercise (having once said “bodily movement alone...is among the dreary and unsatisfying things of life”), as an active outdoorsman…and fresh-and salt-water fisherman.”

“Yet he was…and spent so much time fishing and hunting – more than any other president – that he was constantly criticized in the press,” Durant commented.

“Cleveland considered the barbs nothing more serious than gnat stings suffered on the banks of a stream. As far as my attachment to outdoor sports may be considered a fault, I am...utterly incorrigible and shameless,” Cleveland admitted.

Cleveland grew up in Fayetteville, N.Y., a village near Syracuse, where he “formed his lifelong fondness for fishing,” Durant said.

Grover Cleveland holds the distinction as being the only U.S. president to leave office after one term (1885-89) and later return for a second term (1893-97).

One of his loyal fishing buddies remarked: “Grover ‘will fish when it shines and fish when it rains.’” (That’s pretty much dagnabbit akin to what we hear from present-day Carteret County fishermen who say “the best time to fish is when it’s rainin’ and when it ain’t.”)

Cleveland’s favorite fish was the smallmouth black bass. “I consider these more uncertain, whimsical and wary in biting, and more strong, resolute and resourceful when hooked, than any other fish ordinarily caught in fresh waters.”

Cleveland also is the only president to be married in the White House. He took the hand of Frances Clara Folsom of Buffalo, N.Y., in 1886.

The couple began a vacationing tradition when they spent their first anniversary in the Adirondacks on Upper Saranac Lake, N.Y., staying in a rustic cabin…and going fishing.

One of the local fishing guides told the story that when President Cleveland “first threw his line into the lake, there was quite a commotion among the fish. A great trout stuck his head out of the water and asked, ‘Is that you, President Cleveland?’” Came the reply: ‘Yes, my name is Cleveland.’”

The trout said: “All right, Mr. Cleveland, I am at your service.” The fish leaped out of the water and landed at the president’s feet.”

Perhaps a more reliable account was filed in a report published in 1892 in Current Literature magazine. Fishing guide Jake Cronk said: “Mrs. Cleveland made some wonderful catches.” She hooked a big one, and the president asked: “Frances, shall I take your rod and land him for you?”

Frances laughed and muttered: “Many thanks, dear sir, but I’m quite capable of landing him myself.” And so she did. The trout weighed more than 6 pounds.

Corvette museum rebounds from sinkhole mishap

Eight classic Corvettes tumbled into a pit of debris on Feb. 12, 2014, when an early-morning sinkhole crumbled the flooring beneath the skydome of the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Ky.

All of the cars were hauled out, but five vehicles were deemed to be “beyond reasonable repair.” Instead of being scrapped, however, the cars were preserved “in their damaged state.” The exhibit became a popular attraction with visitors, illustrating the dagnabbit power of Mother Nature.

The sinkhole measured about 20 feet deep and 40 feet in diameter. Fortunately, no one was in the area when the motion-detector alarms went off at 5:38 a.m.

Three of the Corvettes were nursed back to health by body shop healers. General Motors (GM) agreed to repair two of the vehicles.

It took in a 2009 ZR-1 Blue Devil prototype model that suffered only minor injuries.

GM also tended to a 1992 white convertible model, the one-millionth Corvette built. This car sustained a bit more damage, and its disassembly revealed hidden signatures from the line workers who had originally assembled the car.

Where possible, GM repaired the original body panels instead of replacing them. Where new panels were required, workers were invited back to sign them. Recreated signatures, scanned from the originals, were used for deceased workers, or those who could not be located.

But what would become of a “tuxedo black” 1962 convertible that was donated to the museum in 2011 by its original owner, David Donoho of Speedway, Ind.?

The museum decided to tackle much of the restoration project in-house at a cost of about $28,000. The work was performed in the museum’s maintenance and preservation area, where guests could observe the progress.

The restored car was unveiled on Feb. 12, 2018, coinciding with the four-year anniversary of the sinkhole’s collapse.

“The red interior is exactly the interior Mr. Donoho had in it, the interior that he so lovingly cared for,” said museum curator Derek Moore. When a crew member found an old empty sugar packet from a Frisch’s Big Boy restaurant under the seat, “we set it aside, finished up the car, and then slipped it right back under the seat where it was.”

Attending the ceremony was Beth Sease of Zionville, Ind., an attorney and personal friend of the late David Donoho. He died in 2013 at the age of 76, after an extended illness. She said that during high school, Donoho worked part-time at Lilly Industrial Paint in Indianapolis, saved his money and bought a new Corvette in 1962.

“David was so obsessed with that car that he earned the nickname, ‘The Weather Man,’ because his friends would tease him about how closely he would watch the weather and quickly take his Corvette home when there was a chance of rain” and park it in the garage. “He didn’t want raindrops on his car.”

Sease said: “Truly, David had a kindred spirit toward the car… so when it came time to make plans for his estate, he knew he wanted his Corvette to go to a loving home where it would be respected and cared for.”

Sease reached out to Wendell Strode, who was the Corvette museum’s executive director at the time. “Wendell came up to see David several times,” she said. “Wendell earned his trust. Wendell assured David that the museum would preserve his car according to his wishes.”

“In 2011, David turned over the keys to his beloved car,” Sease said. Strode expressed the museum’s deep appreciation: “To be gifted a Corvette that has had only one owner and had been kept in such great condition all these years is rare.”

To the museum employees who had assembled at the restoration unveiling, Sease said: “The legacy David Donoho left was preserved by you, and his legacy lives on. He would have been proud to have been here today to see the way you have come together, diligently restoring his prize.”

The 115,000-square-foot museum features more than 80 Corvettes displayed in various settings. No exhibit, however, can rival the “Corvette Cave In: The Skydome Sinkhole Experience,” chronicling the entire sinkhole story.

New Mustang museums appeal to enthusiasts

What America needs is a museum that pays homage to the great American automobile introduced in 1964 – the Ford Mustang. Why not two, to double the pleasure?

Voilà. A pair of Mustang museums opened in 2019. Both are located in the South.

Travel first to Odenville, Ala., to tour the new Mustang Museum of America. Odenville is a small town in St. Clair County, northeast of Birmingham.

Odenville, with a population of 4,000, is an interesting “site selection” choice made by Bob Powell, who graduated from St. Clair County High School in 1967.

After retirement, he “came back home” from Tampa, Fla., with 70 Mustangs in tow, vehicles that he had collected over the years, determined to invest in the Mustang heritage.

Powell’s Mustang museum is located on 5.3 acres of land behind Fred’s Super Dollar in Odenville.

Almost 100 Mustangs from all model years are housed within the 31,000-square-foot structure. Additionally, the museum has the largest collection of Mustang highway patrol and police vehicles in the world.

If you’re going…Barber Motorsports Park and Barber Vintage Motorsport Museum, a popular tourist attraction in Leeds, Ala., is only 13 miles from Odenville. The museum houses the world’s largest collection of motorcycles.

Travel 392 miles east from Odenville to Concord, N.C., to visit the Mustang Owner’s Museum. The two-story, 42,000-square-foot facility is described by freelance automotive writer Jeff Burgy as a “national shrine of sorts for Ford’s famed pony car.”

The Concord project was spearheaded by Mustang hobbyists Steve Hall of Atlanta, and Ron Bramlett of Morada, Calif. Hall is now the museum’s executive director. He previously served as the chief marketing officer for the Mustang Club of America. Bramlett operates Mustangs Plus, a shop that specializes in “restomod” – restored vintage Mustangs with modifications.

They strategically located the museum within 2 miles of the Charlotte Motor Speedway motorsports complex in Concord, and less than 20 miles from the NASCAR Hall of Fame in downtown Charlotte.

The Mustang Owner’s Museum property is adjacent to the Dennis Carpenter Ford Restoration Parts complex. It has been a popular destination for collectors to shop for Ford restoration parts for more than 46 years. The company uses original Ford factory tooling to manufacture quality parts. The Carpenter family was also a key contributor to the museum.

Among the dignitaries present for the ribbon cutting ceremony on April 17, 2019, was retired Ford stylist Gale Halderman, the designer behind the original Mustang. The event commemorated the 55-year anniversary of the Mustang product launch in 1964.

An essay posted on the website of CJ Pony Parts, based in Harrisburg, Pa., reported that the Mustang name was suggested by Ford’s executive stylist John Najjar, who was fascinated with a World War II fighter plane known as the P-51 Mustang.

Widely considered the best American fighter plane of the World War II era, the power and reliability of the P-51 Mustangs allowed bombardiers to carry out long-range missions from England to Germany.

Ford executives weren’t too keen about naming their car after an aircraft, so Najjar “switched horses in the middle of the stream,” so to speak, aligning the Mustang car with the mustang horse, untamed and roaming free throughout the American West…promising its owner with the “excitement of wide-open spaces.”

At first, Ford’s running horse Mustang logo design resembled the athletic emblem of the Mustangs of Southern Methodist University (SMU), located in Dallas, Texas.

The SMU horse logo faces the right, so Halderman flipped the Ford horse to depict a horse running to the left or toward the “wild, wild west.”

Halderman’s appearance in Concord generated interest for his own venture, the Gale Halderman Museum in the Mustang Barn, located on the family strawberry farm in Tipp City, Ohio, about 16 miles north of Dayton. 

Gale’s grandfather, John Halderman would be proud of his grandson’s contributions to Ford and the success with the “pony car,” although he didn’t have much use for horses on his farm.

Old John used to say, dagnabbit it all: “A dumb mule is smarter than a smart horse.” He said a mule knows to stop at the end of the row and turn around to start on the next section without being told or motioned to do it.

Ford’s 1964-1/2 Mustang: Best there ever was?

Was there a real “Mustang Sally?” The song was written as a whim by Mack Rice in Detroit, Mich., in 1965. It’s a classic story about an iconic American automobile.

Motown singer Della Reese told Rice she was considering buying a lavish gift (a Lincoln Continental automobile) for her drummer and band leader Calvin Shields as a 41st birthday gift.

Shields got wind of the plan and expressed his sincere gratitude…but let it be known that he would rather have a new Ford Mustang.

Rice said he hadn’t heard about the Mustang, but decided there might be a song in the situation. An early version (about a fictional woman who doesn’t want to do anything but ride around in her new car) was tagged “Mustang Mama.”

Rice played the tune for Aretha Franklin, who was renowned as the “Queen of Soul.” She suggested the song be retitled as “Mustang Sally,” because Rice used the name Sally in the chorus.

Mustang Sally, think you better slow your mustang down.

You been running all over the town now.

Oh! I guess I’ll have to put your flat feet on the ground.

Rice’s version of “Mustang Sally” was moderately successful in 1965. He later handed off the tune to vocalist Wilson Pickett, whose version was a giant hit in 1966.

The Ford Motor Company’s introduction of the Mustang is “the most successful new car debut in history, according to George Mattar, a former editor at Hemmings Motor News, a monthly magazine based in Bennington, Vt.

Lee Iacocca is regarded as the “father of the Mustang,” and the public wanted this car, Mattar said. Original owners claim to be charter members the “1964-1/2 Ford Mustang club,” because the first models – both hardtops and convertibles – made their debut on April 17, 1964. Within the first week, 22,000 orders for Mustangs were registered.

A great story surfaced just a few months ago, when the car salesman – Harry (Herk) Phillips – who sold the first Mustang (albeit prematurely) 55 years ago in 1964, was “reunited” with the “Wimbledon white” Mustang convertible, bearing Serial Number 001, at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, Mich.

Mark Phelan of the Detroit Free Press reported that the very first “showroom display model” Mustang was shipped to the George Parsons Ford dealership in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.

Phelan explained: “It took longer to get to St. John’s from Ford’s River Rouge assembly plant in Dearborn than to any other dealership (a distance of 2,180 miles), and Ford wanted every dealership to have a display model when sales began April 17, 1964.”

“Ford wanted all the models to be shipped back to Dearborn,” Phelan said. “That memo didn’t get to Phillips at the Parsons dealership. He sold the car three days early to Capt. Stanley Tucker, of Gander, Newfoundland. Tucker was a 33-year-old commercial pilot with Eastern Provincial Airlines, which became part of Air Canada.

Phelan reported: Dagnabbit, “it was months before anybody at Ford headquarters knew Mustang No. 001 had jumped the corral and was running free.”

“The serial number didn’t mean anything to us,” Phillips said. “We didn’t know it was the first one made. We didn’t realize the significance of the car till Ford came looking for it.”

Amanda Jackson of CNN said it took the Ford Motor Company “two years of negotiating with Tucker to get the vehicle back. In exchange for the first Mustang built, Ford gave him the one-millionth Mustang – a 1966 model with all the bells and whistles.”

Phillips spent a career selling Ford vehicles, retiring from the dealership in 1995. He sold tons of cars during his time there, but none was more special than 001.

A driving force behind the effort to raise enough money to finance a trip for Phillips to go to Dearborn was NLMustangs, an online community of Newfoundland and Labrador Mustang owners and enthusiasts. To complement the effort, Phillips’ granddaughter, Stephanie Mealey, launched a social media fundraising campaign. She called it “Send Harry to Henry,” a playful reference to the museum.

The campaign was successful, so Henry Phillips, now 84, and Stephanie Mealey made the trip at the end of September. They were warmly welcomed and received the VIP tour. When the curator invited Phillips to sit behind the wheel of 001 for the cameras, he spryly hopped in and beamed with joy.

Corvette and Thunderbird models debuted in the 1950s

The first great American sports car out of the starting gate was the Chevrolet Corvette in late 1953. It was a bit of a sputtering beginning, however. Chevy manufactured 300 Corvettes that year and sold 183 of them, according to automotive writer Greg Fink.

The 1953 two-seat Corvette came in one color – white – with a red interior. It’s been a steady climb for Corvette and its loyal customers.

More than 80 models of Corvettes over the years are on display at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Ky. The facility opened in 1994. It’s an attraction within the confines of the “Kentucky bourbon trail.”

Visitors to the museum are quick to learn that the 1953 Corvette emblem introduced the concept of crossed flags. The original logo contained a black-and-white checkered racing flag and an American flag.

Just four days before the Corvette was introduced to the public, the logo had to be changed at the last minute to correct an oversight. Usage of the American flag on a commercial product is forbidden under the U.S. Code of Etiquette.

It was hastily replaced by a flag featuring the Chevy bowtie symbol and a symbol called a “fleur-de-lis” (flower of the lily), which is a symbol of “peace and purity.”

Chevrolet officials wanted to use a family crest from the ancestry of Louis-Joseph Chevrolet but…dagnabbit…they couldn’t find one, so designers settled on the fleur-de-lis because of its French origin.

Meanwhile, over at Ford, executives were hustling to develop a sports car to compete head-to-head with the Corvette. Ford brought in Franklin Quick Hershey to head the design team. Formerly with General Motors, Hershey was the inventor of the famous tail fins that adorned the 1948 Cadillacs, which became the rage of the industry throughout the decade of the 1950s. Hershey was a “rock star” in his era.

Veteran automotive journalist Mark Rechtin wrote that Henry Ford II decided to have a contest for employees to name the new car that Hershey and crew designed. Ultimately, the winner was a young Ford stylist, Alden “Gib” Giberson, who submitted “Thunderbird.”

Rechtin wrote that Giberson said “the legend of the Thunderbird was well known” in the American Southwest. “The Thunderbird ruled the sky and was a divine helper of man. The great wings – invisible to mortal man – created the winds and the thunder and provided rains in the arid desert, where fate had brought the Native Americans.”

“The Thunderbird entered production for the 1955 model year as a sporty two-seat convertible, but it was not marketed as a sports car. Rather, Ford positioned the Thunderbird as an upscale, ‘personal luxury car,’” Rechtin said.

Giberson created the graphics for the new Thunderbird logo, which featured a majestic wingspan and turquoise inlay.

Bill Wilson of Motor1.com, a website serving the automotive and motor sports industries, said Thunderbird had gained the upper hand as early as 1957. More than 20,000 Thunderbirds were sold in 1957, compared to about 700 Corvettes, he said.

“While the Chevy vehicle emphasized speed, the Ford team considered performance part of an overall approach that included upscale touches,” Wilson commented.

The look and feel of Thunderbirds and Corvettes would drift far afield in ensuing years. Ford decided to discontinue the 10th generation Thunderbird in 1997.

After a five-year hiatus, Ford brought back a version of the Thunderbird in 2002 with a return to the original formula for the Thunderbird, a two-seat coupe or convertible layout, but with “retrofuturistic” styling. Sales were less than stellar, so the Thunderbird line was discontinued again in 2005.

Thunderbird Appreciation Day is celebrated each year in May. Thunderbird enthusiasts should plug in at performance.ford.com.

Ford wasn’t on the ropes, by any means. It still had the Mustang (introduced in 1965) to chip away at the Corvette. Coming soon!

Best there ever was – a ‘57 Chevy Bel Air

Standing out among the tail-finned cars in 1957 was the Chevrolet Bel Air. It is generally regarded as “the most iconic car that the automobile industry has ever produced,” noted Chris Riley, of AutoWise, a consumer-focused website, based in Rogers, Ark.

A recent post by Elizabeth Puckett at Microsoft News termed the 1957 Bel Air as “king of the quintessential ‘tri-five’ line that brought the world the drool-worthy mid-1950s Chevy body style.” Specifically, the tri-fives are the Chevys from three model years – 1955-57.

“Revolutionary in their day, these Chevys spawned a cult following among collectors and hot rodders,” Puckett said.

Hemmings Motor News, based in Bennington, Vt., caters to traders and collectors of antique, classic and exotic sports cars. Columnist Bob Palma says there is no single reason why the 1957 Chevy became America’s favorite. “Rather, its status must be credited to a unique combination of reasons, taken together.”

“The 1957 Bel Air showcases all the major 1950s styling cues without going overboard,” Palma said. Begin with the “twin rocket” hood design; this car has character. Up front are “headlamps below heavy eyebrows,” with the centered Chevrolet “V” insignia, appearing almost like a stylized nose. A wide-mouthed grille contains two protruding conical shaped “bullet bumper guards.”

“As originally conceived by Harley Earl, chief designer at General Motors, these bumper guards would mimic artillery shells, intended to convey the image of a speeding projectile,” Palma noted.

The 1957 Chevys had a distinctive profile as well, according to Palma, with “swoopy stainless-steel side moldings, anodized-aluminum quarter-panel trim and Earl’s sexy dip below the quarter windows.”

The tail fins were a cosmetic work of art. The middle section of the fin on the driver’s side contained the hidden gas cap. Below were the tail lights that were supported by faux dual exhaust outlets.

Palma wrote: “Could Chevrolet’s product planning, production and marketing departments have ‘engineered’ every one of these elements to create the icon that is the 1957 Chevrolet? Of course not. Nonetheless, all the stars somehow aligned just right behind the ’57 Chevy, and specifically, the Bel Air.”

Robert Tate, an automotive historian, chose to look under the hood. He wrote: “The 1957 Chevy cars offered a 250-horsepower Ramjet V8 engine. It was the first fuel injection V8 available in a standard production passenger car. This produced great fuel economy and led to outstanding overall performance for the driver.”

Paul Niedermeyer, an automotive storyteller, said the tri-five Chevys were “as solid as the proverbial brick outhouse” – cars that could comfortably accommodate “six pre-obesity crisis Americans.”

These vehicles offered the “nigh-near perfectly balanced package of size, weight and dimensions – with its resultant good performance, efficiency and easy handling – that would never again be replicated,” Niedermeyer said.

In 1957, General Motors produced seven Chevys that were named “black widows.” These cars were fast as the wind and earned their way into the NASCAR record book.

The most famous was Number 87, driven by Buck Baker. He won the overall title in 1957, becoming the first driver to win back-to-back NASCAR championships. Baker is in the NASCAR Hall of Fame and ranks 13th all-time on the circuit with 46 victories.

Editors at Hemmings asked readers to share their thoughts on the 1957 Chevy Bel Airs. Dennis A. Urban wrote: “The car’s got it all. Clean side lines, distinctive rear style, grille, parking lights, hood ornaments – all well-proportioned and clean. Have you ever driven a 1957 Bel Air? I have to say it has a feel and handle like no other…quick, easy to drive and fun.”

“There is no bad angle to this car. It is perfectly balanced, aesthetically,” wrote Chris Lutz of Manassas, Va.

“What made the ‘57 Chevy so popular was its ‘cool factor.’ It’s like comparing Perry Como, the nice clean-cut crooner, to the flashy…hip-shaking Elvis Presley,” commented Don Gridley of Harpers Ferry, W.V.

Gridley added: “The ‘57 Chevy was Elvis on four wheels.” Dagnabbit, man. That’s the ultimate in “cool.”

Elvis Presley went on to score five Number One hits in 1957. He owned at least two 1957 Chevy Bel Airs – a red one and a souped-up black one.

Auto quiz bowl: Who has oldest logo?

Which company logo came first: the Chevy bow tie…or the Ford oval? Both automakers have interesting stories to tell…offering more than a century of memories. Ford is the correct answer.

Henry Ford created his motor company in 1903, and the distinctive Ford script came along in 1907, preceding the oval. It was not the handwriting of the founder. Rather, it was the handiwork of a trained calligrapher – Childe Harold Wills. He was a graphic designer as well Ford’s chief engineer/designer.

Wills was Henry Ford’s first partner in the car business. They squabbled a lot, as strong-willed individuals who become business associates are often prone to do. But Ford was also quick extend a compliment. He said Wills is “the man the public thinks I am.”

Llewellyn Hedgbeth of Second Chance Garage, a classic car restoration website, described Wills as being “gruff, impatient, hard to get along with and a perfectionist who often thought a little more tinkering could make things, even very good things, better.”

Hedgbeth said Wills would tell friends (more than 100 years ago): “If it’s in a book, it’s at least four years old, and I don’t have any use for it.”

The Ford oval was introduced in 1907, first appearing in Great Britain to identify Ford dealers in the United Kingdom. The Ford symbol was Americanized in 1912.

For a time, beginning in 1950, Ford vehicles featured a different emblem – a red, white and blue heraldic crest, reminiscent of the Ford family’s authentic coat of arms from 18th century England.

The lead designer on the project, L. David Ash, filled the new badge with traditional heraldic imagery. The shield was divided into three colored sections by a chrome-edged black chevron that contained five chrome bezants, for ornamental effect. Each section depicted a chrome “passant lion,” in the familiar “right-forepaw-raised position.”

Ford’s blue oval logo was reinstated globally in 1982 appearing on nearly all Ford vehicles worldwide.

Ray Wert of the Jalopnik website said Chevrolet’s bow tie emblem was created in 1913 by William C. Durant, a co-founder of the company.

Wert reported that Chevy’s archivist once said the symbol “originated in Durant’s imagination when, as a world traveler in 1908, he saw the pattern as a design on wallpaper in a French hotel. He thought the shape would make a good nameplate for a car.”

Nice story…but pure fiction. Wert cited research by author Lawrence R. Gustin, who interviewed William Durant’s widow, Catherine Durant, in 1973. She said the symbol was seen by her husband in a newspaper advertisement while they vacationed in Hot Springs, Va., around 1912.

“We were in a suite reading the papers, and he saw this design and said, ‘I think this would be a very good emblem for the Chevrolet.’”

Wert credited automotive historian Ken Kaufmann with finding “the key that unlocked the truth. Kaufmann, while reading old issues of The Atlanta (Ga.) Constitution, came across an advertisement for Coalettes,” a product of the Southern Compressed Coal Company of Atlanta.

Interestingly, the Coalettes newspaper ad ran on Nov. 12, 1911, just nine days after Durant incorporated the Chevrolet Motor Company, along with co-founder Louis-Joseph Chevrolet, a Swiss race car driver.

(Durant and Chevrolet had met in Detroit, Mich., where Durant was working for carmaker David Dunbar Buick. Durant recruited Chevrolet in 1909 to drive Buick race cars. Together, Durant and Chevrolet decided to form their own company.)

In the mid-1950s, Chevy and Ford began to rock the automotive world, with the introduction of two new models that developed into iconic brands, the legendary Chevrolet Corvette sports car and the Ford Thunderbird personal luxury car.

The Corvette hit the market first in 1953. The car was named by Myron E. Scott, assistant director of public relations at Chevrolet. Management said it wanted a “c” word, but not an animal. Scott suggested “Corvette,” a speedy-pursuit, small warship in the British navy.

Scott was lavishly praised but unfazed. He already had a personal “claim to fame.” While serving in 1933 as the chief photographer at the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, he came across a few boys racing down a hill steering vehicles they had made of orange crates and soap boxes, and he snapped their pictures.

Scott became the “Father of Soap Box Derby” in 1934. Dagnabbit. Is that not good stuff?

‘My Sharona’ is still kickin’ it

The hard-driving song by The Knack – “My Sharona” – released in 1979…is a rock’n’roll standard that will “never, no never” lose its edge.

The song launched the successful career of real estate agent Sharona Alperin, who is affiliated with Sotheby’s International Realty in West Hollywood, Calif.

Alperin is the Sharona from the song, and also “M-M-My Mom Sharona,” wrote daughter Eden Burkow for a recent article in Variety magazine.

“My Sharona” was the biggest hit song in 1979, and still, “nary a day goes by without hearing it on the radio,” Burkow wrote.

“My mom’s mostly typical life of a teenager in Los Angeles transformed practically overnight. As the girl with the piercing blue eyes pictured on the cover of the 1979 record, she was the muse of The Knack singer Doug Fieger and his good luck charm,” Burkow said.

Sharona Alperin said: “When Doug met me, I was working at a clothing store. I was about 17. I was so in love with fashion and wanted to work in fashion. But once I met Doug, I practically became frozen in time, and basically lived in and out of a suitcase both in L.A. and while touring the world. I was really just going with the flow of life.”

Alperin said the first time she heard the band play “My Sharona” she was “on my lunch break; I went to a rehearsal” and heard Burton Averee, the lead guitarist, and Fieger discussing: “Should we play it? Should we play it? All right, let’s play it for her.”

“I hoped she’d be flattered with ‘My Sharona,’” Fieger said glibly.

Burkow quoted her mother as saying: “I think the wildest memory continues to be driving back to work, and thinking to myself, ‘Did I really just hear a band perform a song with my name in it?! Is this for real?’”

Fieger had moved to Los Angeles in 1978 from Oak Park, Mich. “He was nine years older than me,” Alperin said. “And within a month or two later, he told me, ‘I’m in love with you, you’re my soulmate, you’re my other half; we’re going to be together one day.’”

Fieger told the Associated Press in 1994 that he was “extremely taken with” Sharona Alperin. “I had never met a girl like her – ever,” he said. “Sharona induced madness. She had a powerful presence. She was very self-assured. She…drove me crazy.” Their connection was “good chemistry,” he added.

Alperin and Fieger had parted ways by the time she was 21, she said, but they remained close friends.

When Fieger was fighting lung cancer in 2009-10, Alperin went to see him frequently in his final months. “A lot of his idols, people that meant so much to him in the music industry, came to pay their respects to him,” she said. “And it was really beautiful.”

Alperin was one of the people at Fieger’s side during his last days. He died Feb. 14, 2010, at age 57.

“My Sharona re-entered the Billboard chart in 1994 when it was released as a single from the soundtrack of the Ben Stiller film “Reality Bites,” starring Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke.

“My Sharona” gained attention again in 2005 when it was reported that President George W. Bush had the song on his personal iPod. Mark McKinnon, who was a personal advisor to the president, was responsible for including “My Sharona.” The two men would exercise together on their mountain bikes, while listening to tunes.

“No one should psychoanalyze the song selection,” McKinnon said. “It’s music to get over the next hill.”

The “My Sharona” beat is pulsating and pounding…sure to make any dagnabbit cyclist’s motor run.

Today, Sharona Alperin is one of Sotheby’s top agents, specializing in serving the housing needs of entertainment industry clients. Her residential listings (on the day of this writing) ranged from a 1-bedroom condominium unit priced at $639,000 to a 6-bedroom home on the market for $7,988,000. M-M-My oh my.

True love has twists and turns, bumps and grinds

Charles Hardin Holley met Echo Elaine McGuire when they were classmates in the fourth grade in Lubbock, Texas. They stuck and became high school sweethearts, graduating from Lubbock High School in 1955.

They were quite an interesting couple, noted William Kerns of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Holley stood a gawky 6-foot tall and was a so-so student. McGuire was a 5-foot tall dynamo and an “all-A” student. One of their favorite dating venues was the Hi-D-Ho Drive-In.

After graduation, Holley stayed in town, pursuing a career as a rock’n’roll artist. His stage name became Buddy Holly.

McGuire went off to college at Abilene Christian University, about 160 miles away from Lubbock. She and Buddy struggled to maintain a long-distance relationship.

For her sophomore year, Echo McGuire transferred to York (Neb.) College, affiliated with the Churches of Christ, located about 665 miles north of Lubbock.

The additional miles only magnified the challenge, but Holly continued to faithfully send her love letters, sealed with a kiss.

But one day it happened. In the registrar’s office on the York campus, McGuire met fellow student Ron Griffith from Thayer, Mo. She and Griffith began to see one another. McGuire said they “shared many ideas, goals and Christian interests.” She broke things off with Buddy Holly.

McGuire told Texas Monthly reporter Joe Nick Patoski: “I felt like I’ve had the call of God all my life. Buddy and I were headed in different directions.”

A Buddy Holly biographer, Randy Steele of Fort Worth, Texas, commented: “Echo was devoted to the church and Christian causes. Buddy was into country and rock music.”

Ron Griffith was a music education major at York. Echo McGuire and Ron Griffith were married on Valentine’s Day in 1958. Each went on to earn a master’s degree at Eastern New Mexico University at Portales. They embarked on careers as professional educators, made their home Carlsbad, N.M., and had three children.

At one point, the Griffiths formed a singing duo and featured Buddy Holly tunes. Echo would wear a treasured gold necklace that Buddy had bought for her before he died (at age 22 in the tragic airplane crash on Feb. 3, 1959, after a performance in Clear Lake, Iowa). Holly’s brother, Larry Holley, delivered the necklace to Echo…in due time.

The Griffiths were business partners, too. They formed Lifescope, an international ministry.

Echo McGuire Griffith died Oct. 29, 2017, at age 80.

Buddy Holly biographers say he never dagnabbit stopped loving Echo, although he took María Elena Santiago of San Juan, Puerto Rico, as his bride on Aug. 15, 1958.

Buddy and Maria moved into the swanky Brevoort Apartments in Greenwich Village in New York City.

Julian Lloyd Webber of The Daily Telegraph in London, England, says one of rock’n’roll’s great discoveries is the Buddy Holly “apartment tapes.” Holly made these recordings at home in December 1958, “just before his departure on the fateful Winter Dance Party.”

Most of the final tracks are “themes of lost love” and “clearly reveal that Holly was not a happy Buddy. The abject misery of Holly’s lyrics hardly conjures a picture of domestic bliss,” Webber wrote.

There were six new songs on those tapes, released in June 1959 by Coral Records.

In “What to Do,” the break-up is haunting, and Holly knows his “heartache is showing.” The song “That Makes it Tough” reflects the challenges of carrying on and picking up the pieces “when you tell me you don’t love me.”

Webber said: “The longing continues in ‘Crying, Waiting, Hoping’ that you’ll come back; you’re the one I love; and I think about you all the time.”

“The last to be recorded, ‘Learning the Game,’ sees Buddy resigned to his fate: ‘Hearts that are broken; and love that’s untrue; these go with learning the game.’”

Vicky Billington Pickering, a Lubbock classmate friend of Buddy and Echo, once commented: “It is interesting to read the lyrics to some of Buddy’s apartment songs and ponder to whom they might apply.”

Do you hear an echo?