We're coming up on a year since Rick passed away. During the time he was sick, I'd read Bev's postings on her blog and know how completely insignificant my postings about this old car are, so I stopped, posting. Beverly has been so courageous though this difficult life event.

As for this small effort to publish stories from our humble existence in Texas, I'll touch base with Robyn and we'll decide if we should make more frequent entries here or turn off this page. If anyone ever reads this, this would be a good time to vote.

Allen

Because Marcie said SO....

Marcie and Benjamin have been with us for the last three weeks. We have really enjoyed spending so much time with Marcie and winning over Ben's acceptance. We also have had the pleasure of having Grandma Rook with us sense the first part of December. Sooo Marcie has decided that I am going to learn how to do this blogging thing. With any luck there will be more postings in the future.

Rust . . .

There are several difficult issues facing anyone who chooses to restore an old car, one of these issues is rust. I knew it had rust because the first time I painted it, I incorrectly filled the rust with bondo then sanded and painted over it. As my late brother Lester once said, "Education is never cheap." One night, less than six months after the first poorly done paint job, Jon while turning into the drive turned to sharp and scraped the fence. The scratch was minor, but it went right across a section of covered rust. The result, the bondo broke along the edges of the repair and there it was plain as day, the car had cancer. Oh well, it was $59 paint job anyway, I knew I'd have to fix it right some day. Well, this is someday and I'm going to repair it correctly. Shown here are the rust areas on the passenger side, I have ground and sandblasted the areas and removed all the surface rust, all that I can see or otherwise identify. In another week or two, I'll do another post, showing the welded repairs. Stay tuned . . .

"Those who can work on their own cars

. . . drive cars that they have to work on." This was a statement that a good friend made one day while we were having lunch. It rings true, pretty much defined my life with cars that day and completely defines my Brother, who BTW is my gear head mentor. So, what am I working on today? Shown here is my 1976 Datsun 280Z. I bought this car from a friend at work, he is the original owner. The car came with complete documentation of 32 years of excessive professional service - he just ran out of patience with it. Jon and I gave it a paint job, that I pretty much completely hosed up - I blame it on the gun that failed in the middle of applying the topcoat, but the fact is, I failed miserably at painting this car. So now, we're in the throws of doing another paint job. Except this time, all the glass, and all the chrome is being removed and every rubber seal will be replaced. Jon thinks this is his car, but actually, it's Robyn's, her name is on the title.

Well there you go, the second post . . .

Earth to everyone

Having been motivated by my daughter's inspiring blog site, I hereby yield and have created The R&A Match Chronicles. I don't believe that I'll be as diligent as Marcie in writing almost daily, but perhaps once a month I'll make an entry, or Robyn will make an entry, we'll post a picture or two and in summary, you'll have an idea of what's happening with the Match family in Texas. So with this, I'll sign off for now, and decide what to post second.

Cheers,