Dear Listers.
I, as the rest of you, am deeply saddened by the loss of Ray Gibbons. He
was always quick to write me personally to discuss something I had written:
LCB content or one of my political ravings. Funny thing about the internet
and these wonderful lists and digests is that we get to meet and know
people who we never would have had a chance to a decade ago. I have always
been fortunate because running the Morris Minor Registry for 15 years and
The British Car Meets in California for 19 years, AND living in tourist
towns like San Francisco and Venice Beach, I've been able to meet many of
the people that are kingpins and sparkplugs in our hobby. The internet has
allowed a whole bunch of us the same oppertunity that had only been
available to a few of us. Ray was a sparkplug wired to a Lucas Supercoil.
I'm sure where ever he has settled, he already has found and is
entertaining a large group of LBC enthusiasts who now get to enjoy his wit
and wisdom.
This is an aging hobby (Hell, little Ricky will be FIFTY next year) and
death will be as big a part of our social scene as birth was in the early
Seventies when people were selling their MGs and Triumphs to get cars that
were family sized. There was an original Twilight Zone episode that comes
to mind when someone goes on to the light. It was about a backwoods
hillbilly who drowns while on a coon hunt with his dog and comes home to
find that nobody can see him and watches his own funeral. Realizing that he
has died he goes down the road looking for heaven.
The first man he meets beckons him inside his fence and tells him of what
wonders await but says that sorry but there are no dogs allowed. He said
that maybe they could slip the dog under the fence once the hillbilly was
inside. The hillbilly thinks a minute and says that he would rather go to
the other place if they would accept the dog. He continues down the road
until he meets another man at another fence who beckons him inside, He asks
about his dog and the man says "sure bring him on in." The hillbilly says
this must be Heaven 'cause it wouldn't be heaven without my dog!" As the
three of them walk off down the path to heaven, the hillbilly asks "is
there any coon hunting in Heaven" and the gateman says, "sure, right after
the hoedown!"
While coon hunting might not be our Heaven, when our time comes, I hope we
find clear skies, open winding roads, plenty of Whitworth tools, and leaded
high test gas. Rick Feibusch - Venice, CA
|