Shuffling Of To Buffalo

Before I post new stories about Parkdale, I want to tell one more Hearse adventure. I'm not sure of the year this happened but probably 1966 or 1967. The Hearse had begun it changes. We had already installed the Olds engine ,but retained the standard transmission. As you can imagine , it was impossible to find a coversion kit for an Olds standard tranmission, they were very rare. This tranny came in a car I bought from Malcolm Ross out in Uigg. I paid $125.00 for the car. I financed it at Household Finance at 8% interest. I was working at Parkdale Pharmacy and made $25.00 for 52 hours work per week. Being only a kid I needed a co-signer. Bill Ross, who worked with me signed for it.
Anyway back to the adventure. The details are lost to time but the core remains.
Roger and I had met two girls, who were camping with their family in Stanhope. For those who remember The Higgins Family ran a store in Stanhope just outside the National Park. We met the girls there and walked them back to their camp site. They were from Rochester New York, very exotic for two yokels.
They gave us their address and number and lo and behold we took off for New York.
The Hearse now had the Olds engine with the three speed manual transmission
was alot faster now so we could make time. As i said before Hurst Shifters for this style were unavailable on little old PEI, so I had to improvise. I had two rods bolted on to the shift levers on the tranny. One was first and reverse , the other for second and third. I got quite good at shifting gears with my foot. When drag racing, I would use my right foot for the gas pedal a and use my left to shift, no cluthch. In previous postings i mentioned that the passenger seat had hinges on the back and one bolt that slid in to hold the front down. Now when we stopped and picked up a girl and put her in the front, and stopped. Then when I pulled out the pin and floored the gas the seat would flip back and she would slide into the back of the Hearse , very quickly.
In a side trip that also is very similar to American Graffiti, we drove to Buffalo to WKBW studio. WKBW was a beacon to us in our youth and Joey Reynolds and The Royal Order of Night People was a nightly ritual for us. As it got darker and later and the airwaves would change WKBW would start to come in our radios and we would listen to all the Rock & Roll hits.
We heard that Joey was a very large man and only came out at night. So Roger and I drove the Hearse to Buffalo, found the studio and parked ouside , we layed on the horn and a man appeared at an upstairs window, waved and left. So did we.
The Hearse did not have sealed beam headlights, but had two bulbs covered by a lens.
The lens had been broken leaving the bulbs exposed. This presented no problem in the daytime on night time, unless it rained.
We were tearing along the highyway somewhere in New York and it began to rain. POP their goes one light, POP there goes the other. We are now without lights.
Roger was prepared, he had taken two 5 cell flashlights from home, his father George always had big flashlights. We roll down the windows and stick the flashlights out and continue on our journey. I wonder if they have the death penalty for that now.
We drove into a town and looked for a place to stay. I parked the Hearse around the corner so it could not be seen.My hair was long and golden at this time also and if I went in we could not get a room.
Roger went it got the key , the room cost $6.00 came out and gave the key to me.
I was wearing shorts, cut off Jeans no doubt, and the Serape that Hickey had brought back from Mexico. I grabbed the key and the luggage , ran in the front door up the stairs and into the room avoiding eye contact with the night clerk.
Roger came in after and we sat down and laughed about the flashlights. Then the phone rang.
"Mr. Newman."
"Yes"
"Your wife didn't sign the register"
Roger: "That's not my wife, that's my buddy"

1968, we thought it was funny.
I don't remember meeting up with the girls but Roger said we did and then we went up to Ontario to meet George Roberts.