Today was great. I got to got to a meeting of the local 3 Rivers MARC (Model A Restorers Club). Actually, this was no ordinary meeting either, it was a seminar on paint and brakes too. After setting my alarm for 7pm instead of 7am, I got up late, walked the dog, and then raced down to Main St. Motors in West Newton PA.

The meeting took place in Keith Waltower’s garage, Main St. motors, and it is an awesome place. He was working on 4 or 5 cars upstairs, and the basement had another 20 or so cars in storage. Some of them were Keith’s, but I think most belonged to other people who rent space.

I was the youngest guy there by far, but I was not the newest. I was one of 3 new members today. I am going to learn SO MUCH from these guys. I can’t wait. Sometime next week I will drive my Model A down there so that Keith can take a look at a few things, and help me get the car running properly.

After the presentations, pizza, and the singing of Happy Birthday to Don (he’s 75 today, and actually I missed it because I was in the bathroom), a few of us went down the block to help Larry (the out-of-focus guy in the middle of the above pic) drag a Coca-Cola cooler out of a basement. The place with the cooler was incredible. I think it is a print shop/antique store. Carl and his assistant Ed showed us around a bit. There is more stuff in this building than you can believe, and it’s fantastic.

Since I was helping with the arduous task of shoving the giant Coke cooler up the stairs, my tour of the building started in the basement. Most of the space is full of hundreds and hundreds of type drawers (some are Civil War era) filled with lead and wood type blocks for letterpress, and jammed way in the darkest corner are two giant presses similar to this one.

photo: The Excelsior Press

I cannot even imagine the pain in the butt it must’ve been to get those two presses down into the basement. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they literally weighed a ton (that’d be 2000 pounds). Upstairs was a real-life maze of awesome stuff stacked up above your head that lead to a storefront that was set up like an antique shop, and under the table were 3 table top letterpresses. Amazing. I don’t have a need for the presses, but some of my art pals might.

All in all it was a pretty great day, and I can’t wait ’til the next meeting.