Let's Get An Old Truck

On Sunday morning, after leaving off my band trailer at my shop from performing with The Excelerators at The Dog Prairie Saloon in St. Paul, MO., I headed to Florissant to meet with Kevin Feissner to head out. At 4:15am, Feiss was there, bright-eyed and bushy tailed and ready to go. There was a possibility that another mutual friend of ours would be along to make the trip to help us out with driving and picking up this unit once we got there to put it on the trailer. He failed to show so we were on the road by 4:30am.

I tried to stay awake until sunlight to make sure Feiss was doing ok. He was fine and at about 6am, he said for me to try to get some shut eye so I could take over at 9am to make the rest of the run. I got about 15 minutes of actual sleep. At about 8:30am, we pulled off and got some motion lotion and some grub at the McDonalds across the street. So much for my low cholesterol diet, mandated by my Family Doctor. Anyway, back on the road and at 10am, I made contact via cell phone with the seller. I agreed to call him again at about 60 miles out to give him an hour to be ready to meet us. I did so and everything was going as planned. The weather was beautiful, but somewhat hazy in the river valley areas as we got into the seller's area. I made the second call and advised that we should be at the appointed location in 50 minutes to an hour.

We made it to the location by 11:30am and the seller wasn't there. We waited and when the seller was about 1/2 hour late. I called his home phone and his girlfriend said he just left and should be there in about 10 minutes. He was there about 20 minutes later.

When we got to his place, the truck was there and we wrestled it onto the trailer with a chain and a skid loader and BFI (Brute Force & Ignorance). We got the unit on there and I noticed I cut a finger on some peeling chrome of the bumper and it was official, blood was now shed on this project. Feiss and I could not believe it was 1:30pm when we were back on the road. We were amazed at the amount of time we spent getting this thing secured.

We stopped off to return a book to my Aunt & Uncle about 1/2 way back home. She could not believe what I was doing and what we had on Feiss' trailer. We stopped off at a gas station in this area. What a nightmare. Truck, cars and boats everywhere. I've done a better job of finding places. More time lost, but there was another McDonalds across the street, so I got lunch/dinner. Feiss said he hasn't had this much of their stuff in over 10 years. The salad this time was much better for me than the breakfast.

Back on the road again and it was about 5pm. We were running so late so I called my wife (Chris) when we were about 2 hours out so she would not wait dinner on me. Feiss called his daughter to make sure she was doing ok. We hit town at about 9pm only to come upon a terrible accident on I-270 at Bellefontaine. We back roaded it off the highway and made it to the shop at about 10pm. We got the truck off (just the 2 of us) and I got it onto the jackstands while Feiss got things sorted out on his trailer. We got the truck and trailer back to Feiss' house by around 11pm and we had a beer and I expressed my extreme gratitude to Kevin for what he had done for me that day.

Feiss is a guy who virtually rescued me one night when it was 10 below zero and my Dodge truck overheated, coming home from a band-job. That was a 2am call to him and he was not upset at all over the call and was genuinely glad to be of assistance. He's a one of a kind, folks!

As you will read on the "Feiss" Vette-mobile webpage, Kevin and my brother Dan were best friends and raced cars together. Feiss was actually the brains of that duo...bro Dan was the braun, but these guys got it done in 1974 with a 10 second, 57 Chevy at St. Louis International Raceway. There is some real history between us and I will get back at this man one day. Just way too cool for school ! That's all I can say about my bud "The Feiss."

Here are some pictures of what we picked up: