Few more pictures and good memories of long ago.....

Overslept this morning so decided to let Page sleep in.  Poor baby is "worn slap dab out"! I have been getting some things done around here and plan to go out after lunch.  Deb posted some of the pictures she took at lunch yesterday and I thought I would share them too. Yep - the glass of KJ is MINE!  I did share it with Jami though so don't get over-excited. 

I promise to try and keep my posts shorter - Leah said it took her thirty minutes to read the last one!  Of course most of them are all about her baby girl so it was worth it - right Leah?  I had a memory when looking at another blog and wanted to share it.

This is The Angus Barn - a restaurant that is right across the county line from us. It was one of two steak houses (the other one was Hartman's Steak House and my favorite of the two) people went to when they wanted a really good steak and nice atmosphere. I've only eaten at The Angus Barn a several times but want to share my first memory. BigD and I were at the end of our Senior year in high school. We both were in a program where we went the school half a day and worked the other half. His cousin and the sister of my best friend had just gotten married and they wanted us to go to the Barn and have dinner with them! So BigD and I rushed downtown and bought ourselves something to wear. We didn't have time to really "shop" so just bought the first suits we tried on. Neither one of us wore those suits again - didn't like them that much! So off we went and boy did I find out the ins and outs of eating out in a "nice" restaurant. They brought cheeses and crackers, veggies and dips, bread and butter and by the time the main meal arrived - I was already stuffed!

This is Hartman's Steak House which no longer exists.  It started out as a small white building run by a family and was around for many years. Their main dining room looked out over a pond with white ducks in it and had a big fireplace. They were famous for their Hartman Salad made with their homemade Bleu Cheese Dressing. BigD has copied that recipe and even made it better.  I.T. and his friend owned a wonderful steak house across another county line called Country Squire and it ROCKED!  Some nights it really did rock when UNC students had their parties there. I worked there on an "as needed" basis doing everything from seating people, to bringing cheese and appetizer trays, pouring tea, water and coffee.  One time there was a college party going on and some of us slipped into the room and danced right along with the kids. Their main dining room had a big fireplace too.  We would all have steak at the end of the night and my feet would hurt so bad I would walk bare foot to my car.  I still have my name tag from when I worked there.

I was on my way back to KH the other day and this beautiful car was in front of me. I took a picture of it with my phone and asked BigD what it was. He said it was a 1958 Chevy Impala - isn't it beautiful??? The two guys in it were totally enjoying their ride and I wanted to drive it so bad. The first car BigD and I dated in was a 1955 Desoto.

This picture is the closest we could get to the color - we both loved that car. He owned it with his older brother until he bought his 1955 Chevrolet. When he bought it, it had an automatic transmission and the engine was out of it.

The guy who owned it had taken the engine out and labeled every piece of it as to where it came from. BigD changed it from an automatic transmission to three in the floor and then he took the engine parts down to his cousin's basement and put it together. After he had re-built the engine, he and his brother got it into a wheelbarrow and pushed it back up the street and put it in the car. In our Senior year of high school, BigD put the car in my name so the insurance would be cheaper. I loved driving that car for the most part - until the gear stick would come off in my hand and I would have to put my fingers down into the floor to change gears. All of my high school friends still laugh about how many times we would push that car off and I would jump in it and pop the clutch to start it. BigD had it all primed and was planning to get it painted when we had a small wreck in the late summer of 1965.

He decided it would cost too much and bought a 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air with three in the floor and that is the car we had when we got married. My side of the seat would slide back and forth whenever we stopped and took off again. :) Hey - we were in love - what can I say! We kept the 1956 Chevy until BigD knew he would be leaving (Navy) at which time he bought me a 1965 Volkswagen.

It had been repossessed by the bank and he paid $1900.00 for it. That was in the late fall of 1966. Wow - we bought a car that was only a little over a year old for $1900.00. We put over 100,000 miles on that little car. It required very little work, zipped in and out of traffic, was my first pioneer car and the engine sounded like a sewing machine. We have always felt like it was one of the best cars we ever had. During this time,

BigD drove a 1962 Chevelle Station Wagon. He put another engine in it and drove it for several years. When I got pregnant with Page, he sold the VW for $600 and bought me a nice, 2 door hardtop Plymouth that had a brand new paint job (Marshmallow White) with red interior, and mag wheels. We have been trying to figure out what year it was and we think it was older than the VW but it was in such good shape, the price was good and we had worn the VW out. It was so nice having such a pretty and clean car to drive but that didn't last for long at all. Not long after we bought it, my brother-in-law borrowed it for a date and a young policeman ran into him and tore the right front fender off of it. The good news is the insurance company paid for it, the bad news is we used that money to pay for Page since we didn't have health insurance.  So I drove a car without a front fender for quite awhile. I also couldn't turn the car to the right so I had to plan my routes. When Page was still a baby, BigD bought me a 1970 Camaro for $1900.

Oh Yeah! It was HOT! I got my first speeding ticket in that car. Page would not take naps so I would put her on the front seat (we didn't have to have car seats or seat belts in those days) and I would drive her around with the windows open listening to the radio while she slept. I worried about her if I knew she was driving any distance when she first started driving since riding in a car was like a pacifier to her! :) BigD decided to drive it one night when he was going out with some of his friends and blew the engine up. It sat in the yard for quite awhile until he re-built the engine, had it painted silver and sold it. He bought me an old station wagon for a bit and then we got a 1969 Buick. After that we got a nice Cadillac which we loved followed by two other cars we didn't keep but a few weeks each - we didn't like either one of them. SO - I bought a 1971 Gold Volvo. It had a front end that looked like a Mercedes, a big steering wheel and I LOVED it. I went on to buy two other Volvo's after that. We kept the Gold Volvo in the back yard until Page got her license after which BigD had a new transmission put in it, had it painted dark gray and she drove it back and forth to school until her Senior year. We sold that Volvo to a young man for $600 and BigD ran into him about a year or so later and asked him if he still had the car.  The young man said he had sold it for $900.

I helped Page buy a nice Honda Accord in her Senior year. I made a down payment and paid for her insurance but she made her own car payments on the balance owed.  BigD all but forbid me to buy anymore Volvo's so I bought a Jeep Cherokee. I loved it but he didn't like driving that either so I bought an Acura Legend which we both loved.  After Page got married, my company bought me a company car - 1992 Toyota Camry - which Page took over and paid the balance on when that lease ran out.  We let Kurt decide whether he wanted to drive the Acura to school or his Dad's old truck.  He chose the Acura so we sold the old truck. One day he was on his way to the Grove for breakfast before going to school and a lady backed out of her driveway into him.  The car was totalled (he wasn't hurt) so we bought him a

a Volkswagen Cabriolet Convertible. My company bought me a 1996 Toyota Avalon for my next company car and I kept it until just a few months ago when we bought my Cadillac. BigD has been in trucks ever since he started his company in 1979 - all Chevrolet Silverados. I am sorry - I guess this wasn't such a short entry after all but we have had fun with it. I started this post this morning and am just finishing it.  BigD has had me looking up pictures of cars and we have been walking down memory lane together. It is amazing the details he remembers about every car. We did have us some fun in cars in those days.  If some of those cars could only talk. Night.