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Celebrating our two-lane highways of yesteryear…And the joys of driving them today!

Fast Cars, Good Wine, And Fine Friends In 1963.


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In 1963 (45 years ago!!!) I was starting work with IBM. A group of us were in training at the IBM Education Center in San Francisco for several weeks. We took a weekend trip to the wine country north of the Bay Area. I have edited the “regular 8mm” movie down to the scenes that would be of interest to old roadies.

 

The handsome fellow standing next to the black 1958 MGA is yours truly, and the red Triumph (Dave Reese, take note!) belongs to an IBM colleague who now I remember only as Dave (blue sweater).

 

The Mobile Oil service station is much like the Flying A (Associated) station where I worked in the late 1950's, which is the model for the "American Road Garage."

 

I have no idea if the Rutherford General Store still exists (see my MGA parked there, and note the Chev pickup), but I assume the Beringer Bros. winery is still there. In those days you could buy a bottle (or more) of wine and enjoy it with a picnic on their front lawn.....a practice I am confident has been discontinued!

 

Enjoy 67 seconds of gripping old road action!

 

http://www.vimeo.com/653640 Click and wait a few seconds to load, then double click on movie image.

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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The handsome fellow standing next to the black 1958 MGA is yours truly, and the red Triumph (Dave Reese, take note!) belongs to an IBM colleague who now I remember only as Dave (blue sweater).

 

What a handsome devil with the MGA, and your friend Dave had a very nice early TR4 there as well. Looks like the MGA suspension is as smooth as my TR3B. (Can you say buckboard boys and girls?)

 

Makes me want to get out the old 16mm home movies, which include my mom's family trips from the 30's as well as my childhood vacations. Cool stuff. Thanks for sharing.

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To paraphrase an old song - there's only 4 things in life worth buffalo spit; older whiskey, younger wimmen, faster cars and more money!!!

I guess we could add a 5th one - enjoyable snippets from the past!!!!

Great little road trip.

 

Hudsonly,

Alex Burr

Memphis, TN

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Denny, Jim, and Alex, thanks for the comments!

 

Think of someone in 1925, looking back to 1880. That is the same time span, but not the same amount of change. In the 45 years between 1880 and 1925 cars appeared, electric lights and appliances became common, airplanes appeared, radios became available...etc. Even though the changes between 1963 and 2008 are enormous, they don’t even approach that earlier period...at least not in what you can see in home movies..

 

The home movies do serve a purpose you know! We had uninvited distant relatives stop in for a stay a few years ago. Like all guests, these folks grew stale after a couple of days, and worse, they were unpleasant.

 

Nothing polite we could do would dislodge them...until I applied the home movie torture. One night of old home movies, with the promise of more the next night, and they started calling the folks they next planned to sponge off. They were gone before evening!

 

I have a few more one minute road related “treasures” culled from hours of boredom. Perhaps I’ll get them up. However, right now I am putting together a movie from 1964 of a happenstance Nevada ranch visit which fortuitously captured an historical site now of interest to the University of Nevada.

 

Then we move to "super 8 mm" (bigger image) done after 1966. Oh, the anticipation! Does anyone want to see hours of my son in his crib? :rolleyes::P

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

 

Dave

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In 1963 (45 years ago!!!) I was starting work with IBM. A group of us were in training at the IBM Education Center in San Francisco for several weeks. We took a weekend trip to the wine country north of the Bay Area. I have edited the “regular 8mm” movie down to the scenes that would be of interest to old roadies.

 

The handsome fellow standing next to the black 1958 MGA is yours truly, and the red Triumph (Dave Reese, take note!) belongs to an IBM colleague who now I remember only as Dave (blue sweater).

 

The Mobile Oil service station is much like the Flying A (Associated) station where I worked in the late 1950's, which is the model for the "American Road Garage."

 

I have no idea if the Rutherford General Store still exists (see my MGA parked there, and note the Chev pickup), but I assume the Beringer Bros. winery is still there. In those days you could buy a bottle (or more) of wine and enjoy it with a picnic on their front lawn.....a practice I am confident has been discontinued!

 

Enjoy 67 seconds of gripping old road action!

 

http://www.vimeo.com/653640 Click and wait a few seconds to load, then double click on movie image.

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

 

 

Hey Dave,

 

Not quite as much impact as the Zabruder clip which also dates to 1963, but your road trip definitely had a happier outcome. Keep em coming!

 

Ray

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Thanks for the movie, Keep! Photographs are nice, but for me movies can tell so much more.

 

It looks like everyone had a fun trip, especially the parts where you were speeding down a gravel road and tasting wine.

 

As one who has had his share of uninvited houseguests, can I borrow those home movies :D ? Or I guess I could do the poor man's version by putting pictures on a disc shown through a Viewfinder and playing a Frank Ifield album (especially one that includes "I Remember You"). Speaking of music, you chose a nice version of "Those Were the Days."

 

Like Denny, I think I'll skip the movies of the baby. Those 1880 movies do sound like something I would watch, though :P . I could see my great-grandfather as a 16-year-old.

 

Seriously, I am looking forward to more clips from the days of punch cards, three TV networks, music on most major AM radio stations and renting phones from the Bell System.

 

Tracy

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Thanks for the movie, Keep! Photographs are nice, but for me movies can tell so much more.

 

It looks like everyone had a fun trip, especially the parts where you were speeding down a gravel road and tasting wine.

 

As one who has had his share of uninvited houseguests, can I borrow those home movies :D ? Or I guess I could do the poor man's version by putting pictures on a disc shown through a Viewfinder and playing a Frank Ifield album (especially one that includes "I Remember You"). Speaking of music, you chose a nice version of "Those Were the Days."

 

Like Denny, I think I'll skip the movies of the baby. Those 1880 movies do sound like something I would watch, though :P . I could see my great-grandfather as a 16-year-old.

 

Seriously, I am looking forward to more clips from the days of punch cards, three TV networks, music on most major AM radio stations and renting phones from the Bell System.

 

Tracy

 

Tracy,

 

You have got all the right words to get me to convert more movies to Flash on the web. And you are right, movies, no matter how bad, show what a still cannot. And often by mistake. Doing these little 60 second shots, I see things that I have never noticed myself, and which I didn’t deliberately photograph.

 

As for dirt roads, that was the main road in 1963! But it was paved.

 

I appreciate the interest in the movies and it is fun to do them when the weather discourages road trips. I have a few more in mind, including one for Roadhound of the Redwood Highway (Trees of Mystery, with Babe the Blue Ox and Paul Bunyon) in 1964 and one movie crossing the mighty Columbia River on one of the last auto ferries...in fact the new bridge is in view. Ray might help me confirm where it was.

 

I wish I had some old movies in your area, but I didn’t get into Mississippi until much later.

 

I haven’t moved into the late 1960’s and early 1970’s yet. Kodak had shifted to Super 8mm by then which is a bigger image and therefore provides better detail. I just hope my Super 8mm projector has a little life left!

 

Speaking of punch cards...did you hear the one about the guy who tried to use both sides? That used to roll IBM’ers in the aisle!

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

 

Dave

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Keep,

 

I am glad you are going to post more movies. Whether by mistake or not, they are great glimpses of a time I will never see for myself.

 

I see now that the road was paved. I'll blame my seeing it as gravel on my being used to modern two-lane roads and the fact that it was after one a.m. when I posted. Of course, it can simply mean I need stronger glasses.

 

Thankfully, there are enough relatively-untouched old roads in this area that I can envision somewhat what travel was like in the '60s and before. The road I live on was an important highway route until about 1945, and it may be narrower than the road in your movie. Of course, the visions of travel in days past disappear closer to the bigger cities (and the 1987 highway program that has given many of our US highways four lanes or more does not help).

 

Since you mention the Redwood Highway, my (uneducated) guess at the ferry would be U.S. 101 at Astoria, Ore. My 1957 atlas shows the route as a ferry crossing, and Wikipedia says the bridge opened in August of 1966.

 

The guy using both sides of the card has me rolling as well. That reminds me of when I tried to "recycle" my typewriter ribbon at the age of ten or so.

 

Tracy, who just might be earning the nickname of Rambler (but it's better than Edsel!)

Edited by cityboy1986
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