Henry Rifle Forums

Thinking nostalgic again.... As I think back today to 1974 I had a nice 1972 Opel GT like one pictured and bought it in 1973. Come Spring of 1974 I was looking at buying a 1974 Pontiac Super Duty 455 T/A but could not find dealers that had any...tough to get. So I settled on ordering a 1974 Camaro Z/28 from local dealer. On a trip to the dealer to check on build issue since there was a hold up on production I was told a little longer wait.


Now the Pontiac dealership was just down a block or so and I had to pass it on the way home and something caught my eye on their used car lot.
Turn around to check it out and it was a nice looking orange 1970 Challenger R/T and when I looked at the hood there it was...426 Hemi emblem on sides of the flat scooped hood...."Holy Crap" !! Then a salesman come walking up as I am checking it out... 426 Hemi and it had the good Torqflite auto with the Super Track Pac which included the beef 4.10 Dana 60 rear and other goodies. Salesman said they wanted to get $1500 bucks for it!!!!! which was average back then for a 4 year old muscle car with the gas prices starting to go up. It only had 33,000 miles on it too but was running a bit rough. I should have gone back to the Chevy dealer and canceled the Z/28 deal right then and bought the Challenger but I was thinking new car like a dummy!
I could have kept my Opel GT and paid cash for the Hemi Challenger!!! Would have to had parked it in the side yard of my Dad's driveway since my brother's 1970 Hemicuda was parked in Dad's one car garage while brother and his wife were living in an apartment at that time.

End of story.... I told a friend of mine about the Challenger and he bought it. He brought it by our house where my brother and I tuned it up and found somebody had mixed up the firing order of the plug wires when doing a tune up! He kept it for a year and sold it for more than he paid and it changed hands like that making more money for several more years!
Well the Z came in and I did enjoy it and later sold it for more than I paid 1 1/2 year later to a high school kid...really his Mom with a fat checkbook!

Should have bought that Hemi!!!

I wouldn't even know where to start.

I love Ernie's answer!!!!

My dumb things started when I turned 21.

I turned 19 at Parris Island. Limited my options to do dumb stuff. I probably would have done a LOT of dumb stuff as a young Marine, but I didn't drink. So, I avoided those pitfalls.

Only thing I can remember, is discovering that it was legal back then to drive your vehicle on Onslow beach in the off season. Fresh out of A School, my roommates and I drove my 64-1/2 Mustang onto the beach, and buried it to the frame in the soft sand.

Luckily a surf fisherman came along in a huge 4x4 and easily freed us, we were able to stay on the packed sand just above the surf line back to where we crossed the dunes. Years later, in my 4wd Subaru wagon (before awd) I would pull a number of 4wd trucks free, driven by those not used to soft sand.

Sitting on the hard pack with a jerk strap, giving them just that little extra they needed, after a short brief on "light on the gas, don't floor it when the tires spin." and out they'd come.

Pay'in it forward.

Got my ass discharged from the Navy. Just being a stupid young man. No harm, but it sure changed my life.

Went for a solo stroll in downtown DaNang in early 1966. Uneventful, but wasn't the smartest thing to do even when carrying a M3.

Spent most of my twentieth year flying gunships on an all expenses paid vacation to SE Asia. Need I say more about dumb things that I did?

Well, it usually involved with alcohol and females so I won't go into specifics. I was driving my Father's
tractor trailers when in my 24th year I got a letter that said, "Greetings". That removed me from the
ire of angry females, their Fathers, and brothers.

Too much. SO not going there.

Dumbest? not sure I can narrow that down. Most of my decisions were very poor, I carry quite a few regrets.

I used to spearfish on the jetties at Ponce Inlet in Florida. Since the jetty was a pile of rocks and I was 1/4 mile from the shore, I couldn't easily swim back to the shore every time I speared a fish. My solution was to hang a stringer on my belt. Bottom line was I was carrying a stringer of bloody fish around behind me in the shark bite capital of the US. Luckily, I never even saw a shark, nor lost any fish off my line.

God protects drunks and fools. I never needed protection from the drunk stuff.

I thought I'd stay indestructible forever. Close but not quite.

while black bear hunting on the northern slope of Mt Mitchell, our dogs bayed a large male in a Laurel Thicket .... he was literally ripping the innards out of some of our hounds .... so, in a not so bright moment, I got down on my hands and knees so I could crawl into the thicket .... I was armed with a single action 44 mag Ruger Blackhawk .... thankfully, before I could get close, what was left of the pack forced him out of the thicket directly in front of some other hunters .... the bear was so agitated that he didn't go down easy .... can honestly say I've never done anything like that again

Most of my 20's involved alcohol, large amounts. I'll leave it at that. (I never went to jail though!)

Needed a ride home from a large party in rural Illinois. My ride had left and the only one going my way was a guy on a bike. ( motorcycle ). I accepted the ride even though he dropped it when he went to kick start it. I got on the back anyway...( talk about dumb ).
We both ended up in the hospital. I'll spare you the details.