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Weekly News July 7, 2008Description
Our Model 76 Stanley on the 1975 Glidden Tour: The Glidden Tour Revival was a hub tour held at Canandaigua, NY, with the new Sheraton Inn on Canandaigua Lake, one of the western-most Finger Lakes, as the headquarters. I had not participated in a “Glidden” since 1961, and I thought it would be fun again, and invited Willard and Eleanor Robinson to accompany me. The most practical car for us to take would have been the larger Model 87, but it was apart undergoing major modifications including a steel frame, larger water and fuel tanks, new pump box location, and new paint and nickel-plating. So the 76 was made ready, and an extra 27-gallon water tank was suspended underneath to increase our range without stopping for water.
As we left Yorklyn, I gave Eleanor Robinson the task of keeping a log of our trip, what stops we made, etc. She recorded 13 stops to clean burner nozzles the first day. We had lunch somewhere around Lewisburg, PA, and spent the first night at Mansfield, about 225 miles from Yorklyn. South of Mansfield, I took on kerosene, but it turned out to be disastrous. Poor steaming was not noticed at first as we made our way north the next day in a steady rain with the top up. Becoming hungry in early afternoon (it was a Sunday), we stopped at a country restaurant at Naples, NY, with a lot of parked cars, indicating it was a good place to eat. At the door we were told that without a reservation they couldn’t feed us, and then the owner spotted the Stanley in his yard. Immediately he took us in and we had an excellent dinner. It turned out he had been the food manager at the Hotel duPont before buying his own restaurant in Naples. The rain behind us, the weather turned very cool as we arrived at Canandaigua to begin the tour the next morning. Our beginning and ending banquets were held in a school cafeteria because of the large number of participants on the tour.
Monday was not a good day. As the tour cars left Canandaigua enroute to the race course at Watkins Glen, Ann Fisher Klein, in her ’17 Winton with passengers Ted and Ruth Brooks of Wayne, PA, turned in front of a truck, the passengers were thrown out, and the car was severely damaged. Ann and Ted were not seriously hurt, but Ruth Brooks ended up in the hospital with broken bones and internal injuries. For many years, Ann Klein owned the Universal Tire Company, first of Elizabethtown, then of Lancaster, and now of Hershey, which company supplies antique car tires of many sizes to the hobby. Before her recent death, she sold the company to Coker Tire Co. of Chattanooga, TN. Our misfortune in the Model 76 occurred about 10 miles farther on. Steaming very poorly, I stopped alongside the road and found the vaporizer cable stuck so tightly I couldn’t budge it. With many onlookers stopping and wanting to help (most of them couldn’t), unrelated conversation was not welcome. When I finally got the cable loose and was pulling it out, I burned my hands badly while someone was asking questions about how the Stanley worked. We lost two or three hours before we were back on the road, followed the tour route, had a late lunch, and got back to Canandaigua one hour after the points deadline. After the first day, our chance for a perfect score was gone and my hands were bandaged.
Tuesday and Thursday were bad-weather days. Rain occurred much of Tuesday as we made a 100-mile trip to Ledgeworth State Park and return. Wednesday was a “local day”, and we visited the Gideon Granger home and the Sonnenberg estate and arboretum in Canandaigua on a nice afternoon. Thursday it rained all day, and partly in deference to my passengers, we stayed at the hotel, as those who followed the tour route to Geneva and Hammondsport got drenched. On Friday, a mild day, we visited an atomic power plant near Lake Ontario east of Rochester, and the home of Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Latter Day Saints.
Our two-day trip home was pleasant and uneventful. After visiting the Glenn Curtiss Museum at Hammondsport, we spent the night south of Williamsport, and continued down the beautiful Susquehanna Trail to Clarks Ferry and Harrisburg, and then on home. Mechanically, the Stanley gave no trouble, and my hands were healed. When we arrived home, we had covered about 1,000 miles. It was the last of four Glidden Tours successfully completed in the Model 76. I have attended two since: in 1980 with the Model 87, and in 1984 with the ’37 Packard, driving to and from New Hampshire and Indiana respectively. Ruth has never been on a Glidden Tour.
On the Glorious Fourth, eight of our Stanleys and their drivers and passengers participated in Hockessin’s parade, and all went to Woodside Farm for ice cream at its conclusion. No trouble was reported. This coming Saturday, July 12, we expect several of our cars to go to the Ronald McDonald House to expand their Corvette Show, a fund raiser for this worth-while charity.
Tomorrow, July 8, Don Hoke, the new Consulting Director of the Stanley Museum, plans to stop here to visit with Catherine Coin and myself. On Tuesday and Thursday evenings, Bill Schwoebel and his faculty plan the teaching of Stanley driving techniques to several volunteers who want to become qualified. Many thanks to all who are helping with this important project.
Tom
