Blog for October 12th, 2026
My Loves Model A
I feel like just getting straight to the point to the punch line of today’s blog. Because it’s wonderful, exciting news. So, I guess I will and then work backward from there, like they do in the movies sometimes. Yesterday we were able to put my husband’s Model A Ford in the one-hundred-year route 66 car show. Boom! There it is that’s the point.
Now, let me back up, it is just about three years ago from this very day that a friend of ours let us use his flat bed long trailer to go pick up the 1929 Model A Ford that my husband had found online in a town about four hours away. The three of us went there and got it. It looked like it was the original deal. I mean the same ol crusty black paint it’s had since it was built in 1929! Same engine, but the guy said it had been rebuilt. Whatever. It still needed plenty of work.
So right from the day we brought it home, my Love, aka my husband, started working on it. For these past three years he has gone out and done a little at a time when he could. Because he has COPD, emphysema and congestive heart failure and he was seventy-nine when he began work on it. It was never easy for him.
Many times, he had to sit it out and stay inside due to weather and illness. But he’d get a little better and head back out there. The old car was kind of in a protected area, but not entirely. The harsh, dust filled wind would still blow in there, not a safe place for him really. He would watch YouTube to learn about the old engine and how to do things with this antique car. He also talked to tons of people who had some experience, people who live far away. It was very difficult to get people who would come to help him and show him.
We have four adult grandsons who live near us and I realize they have busy lives, jobs, girlfriends and now kids, but in three years, none of them could find an hour to come help him, and that hurts, well, it hurts me, he is more understanding and forgiving than I am. Then finally, a friend in the program, who lives about forty miles away would come when he wasn’t working sometimes and help him.
Ken was such a blessing when he started helping Jim, he told us he used to work on cars with his dad who had passed away, and this was like a gift to feel like he was still doing that. In fact, he is like a son to us. He is married to a lady that I sponsor and they have two sons. One is eighteen now and the other is sixteen, they all play sports, go to meetings and have busy lives, yet he found the time come help my Love work on his little car. Amazing.
Mark is the one who let us use the flatbed to pick the car up and he is not a mechanic, but has helped us in so many other ways, he is HVAC certified and always helps us with our cooler and other things. He really helped out big time getting the car to the car show yesterday and home again. He says he loves us and likes to help my husband when he can. My husband was his sponsor for a while, but after several relapses he thought it was best Mark finds a new sponsor. So he did, but he is still our friend of course.
Then there’s Jessie, an old friend that I used drugs with over fifty years ago and lost track of him until he walked into the rooms about two and a half years ago. One night at a meeting, about three months ago now, I heard him share he needed a friend. After the meeting I told him he could come see us anytime he wanted and that my husband was usually out working on the car and he could hang with him and talk to him. He was very excited about that, and it took like a month until he actually came, but as it turns out, he’s worked on cars for fifty years! He knows a lot about cars. It gave him something to do and someone to hang with and way helped my husband out. He was a blessing indeed.
In fact, it was a Monday about three weeks ago when my Love and I were doing our daily meditations and praying and I prayed for someone to come to help him. Ken had a new job, the kids were not interested, and others didn’t really know much about old cars and truthfully, the work was tedious most of the time. So about thirty minutes after I prayed, there was knock on the door. Jessie! He was here to help. The Lord always gives us what we need right when we need it. Amazing, what a blessing Jessie has been in these last couple of weeks.
The car was done and ready for the big car show, one of the biggest this town has ever had due to it being the one-hundred-year celebration of route 66. It was pop’n’, jam’n and full of music, people of all ages and backgrounds were there. The cars, trucks, bikes and novelty things were amazing. We had so much fun and seen many old friends, even high school friends and way back friends. Old co-workers and we made new friends too.
But wait, here’s the thing, yes the car was all ready for the show, but when we took it for gas the day before the show, it over heated and wouldn’t start! Ugh! I had followed him in our GMC and had to push him home. The poor little car was smoking as we rolled into our driveway. Whaaaa. He said “I guess it won’t be in the car show after all, I said “bet me”! “if I have to push it all the way there, this car is going to be in the car show. So I went and got a car dolly at U-Haul. That night, my husband, Mark and eventually a neighbor came out and got it on the dolly. We had to leave it in the street, but we got up before the sun and took it onto the car show place. Got her parked and set up our camp there for the day. Our friend said that the car-dolly was too difficult and he’ll call his towing service at the end of the day.
Well, that didn’t work out too well, nearly everyone was gone and the city people could not open the road because of us, so Mark and my Love went and got the infamous flatbed again and came and brought it on home. Ken and his wife, my sponsee were there and waited with me and Ken helped them load and unload the car. So did five of the city guys! Amazing! 😊 Really nice guys, but I felt bad they couldn’t let traffic through on Main st, route 66 until we left. Geeze.
But they put the car in the driveway again and we all went to an NA meeting! That’s right, it was great, like a celebration, I was moved and grateful to see the three guys that had helped my Love with his little car these past three years sitting around him at a meeting. Life just doesn’t get better than that! Thank you, God.
Question of the Week: Have you ever experienced the love of the fellowship when you’ve needed help?
