My first car was a '72 Ford Pinto, my senior year in high school.
The Mercury equivalent was the Bobcat.
First thing I did was to put in an under dash 8 track player and surface mount Xtal speakers on the rear window deck. Cruisin down the road to Santana.
Later ordered a custom chrome tubular steel grill from JC Whitney.
The Pinto had heavier doors and a bigger motor compared to the Toyota Corolla and Datsun 1200. By today's standards, they were all POS. Apples and oranges.
Cannot complain for $2400. An XKE was $9000.
Those were the days.

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I like the unusual, the off beat, the avant-garde. No 3/4 FNC for me!

These? That's the closest thing I can remember to your description.

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I love sanding.

Nope. I guess Xtal (pronounced "Crystal") is long gone.
They were surface mounted in a wedge shaped housing, IIRC.

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I like the unusual, the off beat, the avant-garde. No 3/4 FNC for me!

That Comet must have had a hood from a Maverick Grabber if it was a factory hood.
The only ones that came with a non-functional scoop from the factory were V8 Grabbers.
Of course it could have been some JC Whitney glued-on mess.

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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, TURMOIL, FIASCOS, and HAVOC !

That looks like a very nice facility and a great display of that well polished jet. And funny you should mention Air Force One.

Fast-forward about two and half years after the assassination attempt. It is now late October, 1983. Reagan is due in to my town -- Augusta, GA -- to partake in some golf at the Augusta National Golf Course for the weekend. The course is probably about 8 miles northwest of where we are here in Augusta. Air Force One, carrying the President, First Lady, and some of the staff are due in at Bush Field airport on that Friday afternoon. Bush Field is about three miles to the southeast of us here...not far away at all.

Though I had seen an ex-President before (I was in a church service in the summer of '82 in north Georgia with Jimmy, Rosalyn and Amy; they had a vacation home outside of Ellijay, GA, where both sets of my grandparents lived and I was working with one of my grandfathers during the summers while in college), I had never seen a 'sitting' President before.

The airport and it's environs had long been one of my cycling (the peddling kind) destinations, so I decided that Friday afternoon that the President was to arrive would be a good day to go cycling and to see just how close I could get and maybe -- maybe -- get to see him/them. Plus, I figured I'd have much better maneuverability on a bicycle than in a car.

So, late that afternoon I peddled on out to the airport and got out on the general 'front lawn' area somewhere around the lower aircraft parking areas, figuring Air Force One would probably not taxi to and deplane in the main terminal area. Bush Field is a decent sized airport, but not huge.

Sure enough around the appointed time Air Force One came into view and as I recall, landed from the south. Much to my surprise, it came taxiing up fairly close to the general area I was in and I only needed to bicycle a short little distance to get a better look at it on the tarmac. A handful of other folks on foot had also congregated around to 'see what they could see' kind of a thing. I did not see a single security person in sight; but that does not mean none were around. Still, I was surprised how close we were...probably 50 yards or so, and I still had not been 'checked' or stopped by any security personnel.

In relatively short order, the rolling stair case was pushed into place against the side of Air Force One and the side door opened and out stepped the President, Nancy, and George Schultz and a few other folks. The somewhat small crowd waved in their direction, but I don't really remember whether they looked our way or not.

They got into the limo and off they went, presumably heading for the Augusta National and a weekend of golf and relaxing. And I told myself "Well, you have now seen an actual, sitting President of the USA. Time to get back home and hit the books again". That would be my 'entertainment' for that Friday.

Next morning, Saturday, about 11 or so I was sitting at the table eating a late breakfast when all of a sudden at about pine tree height (and we have about 10 very tall pines in our yard), two choppers, separated by about two seconds time, flew over the house at break-neck speed. I mean, they were flat-out gettin' it towards the northwest. I remember thinking to myself "Geez, fellas! Why don't you just take the roof off the next time!!".

Minutes later, a breaking news bulletin came over the local radio. Some yah-who had driven his pick'em-up truck THROUGH the gates at the Augusta National and had made it to the pro shop as I recall with a handgun, looking for the President! He took five hostages there and fired one shot into the floor. The President was golfing at the time and Reagan actually tried to talk to the man by phone in an attempt to get him to surrender and release the hostages. Eventually he did surrender later in the day and no one was hurt.

For a moment I thought, "Oh, no! Here we go again!!". Alas, the guy was drunk I think and a bit unstable in other ways too, and had no real ability to get anywhere near the President. But still, I'm sure it had to be a bit unsettling to the President and his family.

Just a couple days later the United States invaded Grenada and it turns out the trip to Augusta was, in part, somewhat of a diversion technique relative to the invasion. The administration actually was in the process of nailing down the final details and approvals for the invasion while they were at the Augusta National that weekend.

Earl

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Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970

Hmm. I know Craig, Kraco, Realistic, Pioneer, Jensen, etc. made wedge shaped surface mounts. I've never heard of Xtal, but have heard of Crystal Sound. While looking I found a few other brands of wedge speakers like Muntz that I've never heard of. It seems that Madman Muntz was quite a character.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_Muntz






.

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I love sanding.

The 8 track deck was a Muntz, purchased at Muntz Stereo which was the ONLY auto electronics store in town. Long before Crutchfield and their catalog.
Besides Santana's Oye Como Va I remember playing Malo's Suavecito over and over.
Oh, and Marie Osmond's Paper Roses. Hey don't laugh.

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I like the unusual, the off beat, the avant-garde. No 3/4 FNC for me!

Earl, great story. It is unbelievable how lax security was back as late as the 80s. Being a bit older than you ... I had a similar experience seeing a president — LBJ. I grew up near Stapleton International in Denver. We used to ride our bikes onto airport property periodically. One time, we rode clear to the end of a concourse, and were checking out a 727 with its tail door open. The pilot apparently saw us and invited us to board and come up to the cockpit with him. But I digress ...

We heard LBJ was landing in Denver, and rode our bikes to the airport. We were close, maybe within a 100 yards. I recall seeing the President, but do not recall who else was present. I was about 12-13, so I maybe would only have recognized someone like Ladybird. I would not have known any other person, like a cabinet member. And as you experienced, nobody really seemed worried that we were there.

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Lee Reep
NAR 55948

Projects: Semroc Saturn 1B, Ken Foss Designs Mini Satellite Interceptor
In the Paint Shop: Nothing! Too cold!
Launch-Ready: Farside-X, Maxi Honest John, Super Scamp

My dad took me to see LBJ's motorcade pass through town. Saw a flash of him waving.
Local press got a kick when he stopped the motorcade to get an ice cream cone from the local Dairy Queen. This may have been around '66, but not sure.
Different times.

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I like the unusual, the off beat, the avant-garde. No 3/4 FNC for me!

Yeah, if I had been ‘packing’, I could have emptied a good size magazine before any security type reached me. That thought crossed my mind as I sat there stradle my trusty ten-speed, but then pushed the thought out of my mind as a bit morbid, and I wanted to enjoy this little bit of personal history that I was taking in. Still, the opportunity was certainly there.

In younger years than that, I’d ride right up to the fence in that same general area, mainly where private prop planes and jets were often parked. I hoped on a number of occasions that some worker/pilot type would see me and do for me what that pilot did for you and your friends. Alas, it never happened.

Earl

__________________
Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970