THE FROGS........

In the late 70's early 80's some of you may remember the studio car I drove, a 1951 Chevy Panel truck. I had bought it from a friend of mine for $ 500.00 and at the point of purchase it had no interior, was a 6 volt system, was a very bad color of yellow/brown with a primer front end. The name "Video Van" stuck. I had great visions for it and all my Dad could say was "How much did they pay you to take it ?'He lacked my positive attitude and visual nature. I had the front end rebuilt to take care of the shimmy that I experienced when driving over 30 miles and hour. Had it rewired and converted to a 12 volt system, brakes, and then a trip to the body shop. I will be eternally grateful to one of my heroes, Frank Saferight the owner of Grundys Bodyshop in Carthage Mo.

Frank is one of the old guard of the street rod community of the Joplin, Pittsburg, Carthage area. He has owned a great collection of rods over the years that are and were classics of perfection. I knew he could complete my vision and in fact, offered some touches to it that really set the mark. He suggested that we recess the gas filler and put a flap over it to clean up the look. He also came up with the color scheme which was, the only choice for the vehicle. The Body was a dark metallic brown and the fenders and running board were black......I set off the wheels with Baby Moons and chrome rims. Damn it looked good.

We carpeted the entire interior and installed two "coach chairs" for the driver and passenger, put in the stereo and I was ready to rock and roll. I drove the car for about 4 years and have some fond memories. Perhaps the most memorable was "The Night Of the Suicidal Frogs". I had been contacted by the State of Missouri to video tape the damage caused by the extreme flooding between Kansas City and St. Louis during the massive storms that hit the state. While traveling with a representative between locations one night, in one of the massive downpours, we experienced a very STRANGE event.

As we were driving along, barely able to see through the rain, we kept hearing sort of a slap/splat that increased with the amount of rain that came down. The van had pneumatic wipers which were pretty remarkable in their inefficiency. If you increased your speed the wiper quit working until you leveled off at a "cruising speed. Translation.....to see where we were going there were occasions when I had to stick my head out the window. OK.....blinding rainstorm, hilly road, head out window, and seeing hundreds of bullfrogs leaping to the safety of the high ground road, only to encounter.........The Video Van...SLAP/SPLAT. It was not pretty.

The reason for the story is the memory was brought up when I photographed Larry Coopers 50's era truck that I shot last weekend. It's a great ride, it wears him well, and the location was perfect. I sure love my job.