We need more stories and pictures like these. Great record! Share more, anytime!

-

 

 

For Ray and his family and for the guys at the dealership- a verse:

I bought myself a sweet new car
it looks just like a butter bar
When Ray saw what I had done
he said "Hell I'm only ninety one!
Let's go get another one!"

So we went and bought another car
of butter at the Butter Bar
better known, or A.K.A.
as Kendall Toyota, U.S.A.

Amin and Orlo made the sales
of the funny yellowtails...
Yellow Submarines ! but even better:
DC Exhausts are girl-getters

Ray now rolls along in style
and all the girls want Ray a while
he's driving in his butter car
slick and sure and going far


.

 

Never to old ..........

My thinking is simple - If you act young and play young, you'll always stay young !

Guys, congratulations on your new XB PURCHASE .....

OUTSTANDING STORY and do not be strangers here !!

 

VEry cool story!!!!! It will have the Scion marketing guys scratching their heads and the Buick marketing guys saying, Doh!!!! I actually thought I was too old (42) to pull off the Solar Yellow RS2, guess I was wrong, huh?

 

So, is this KENDALL TOYOTA in Miami?

 

affirmative.

The dealership is actually some miles south of the city of Miami proper, on US1.
The opening picture in this thread was taken the very instant after we got the two cars home.

Ray's car pulled over to a shady spot. I put mine next to Ray's
and Loren snapped our picture Fresh

 

Ah, cool! So here is an invite...
We would love for both of you to show up to our next meeting.
Our weekly meetings are every Monday at 8:00 pm at the Fuddruckers in Doral, although a bunch of us get there early (7:00), and eat at the Fuddruckers. This serves two purposes: One, it's dinner time,and you got to eat, and Two, the nice folks at Fuddruckers let us use their parking lot to park our many SCIONS.

Here’s the address to Fuddruckers:
10680 NW 19th Street, Miami, FL

Our club has a lot of exciting things going on. We have attended various shows (Ignition Showoff at Homestead Speedway, Fast & Furious Music Tour, were we won 1st, 2nd, & 3rd place in the Scion class), The Underground Showoff, where we won best Scion, and the Summer Revolution 2004 at F.I.U.

We are a chapter of the Scion Evolution in California and we currently have about 35 members, give or take (Xa’s, Xb’s and Tc’s).

As part of the club you can receive discounts from local and national vendors and when you sign up for membership you will receive a Scion Evolution T-Shirt, key chain, and goodies. We will provide you with all the membership details (and forms, if John brings them), at the meeting.


Check out our website and forum for details and pics. Here’s our club info:

Check out our gallery & forum
https://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=62
www.Scionevolution.com, go to the gallery to see the Miami pics
https://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=62


...<*)))><
~~~~~~~


Kraft durch Freude
©¿©¬
Rev. TJ

 

I hope this gets read at the top. The personal coincidences surprise me.
Have known Ray for 22 years but never had a clue he was so ready for new adventure, even if we did go on Model T rides together in the past.

His eyes went wide last Sunday afternoon when Ray opened his front door to
gaze on that first Scion (my copy) that he'd ever seen.. the RS2 in all of its yellow outrageousness, at his doorstep, angled-in for maximum surprise effect.


'Gotta get me one of those"


Loren S, in the photos on previous page, was witness and encouragement, and so we both said to Ray:

Why not?






===

TJ: thanks for the invite. We'll see. I'll tell Ray and he'll probably be interested in going up there in his car.

 

Great! This coming Monday, we wil be at STRIKE MIAMI, at 7PM, to bowl. If that does not work for you, just try to come by on another Monday at Fudds.

I think a lot of us would love to see two Yellow Boxes at the same time!

 

What a great story.

 

where is Strike Miami? I don't think we're much as bowlers but as concentration spoilers, we might spare your time.

ha ha for bad puns

 

It's at the DOLPHIN MALL. I am not much of a bowler as well, but I have fun. If you GOOGLE Dolphin Mall, you should find it.

7PM. It's a nice way to spend some time.

 

OK, I found it..

cool site
http://www.strikemiami.com/
out where the gators bite
strike miami
strike at nite

If we get there,
photos
will be in order for you all.
it'll all be (the cars and people) greek to me and uh,
like another world even more distant to Ray.
Bring him up to speed gently
STRIKE!
(hooray)

 

I was about to say that!

This is a GREAT story

Too Cool!

 

Let me tell you a bit of Ray's biography.
I learned this stuff only last September because it was time to do an oral history of the man.
None of his life is written down. He's that kind; one who does not talk of his past and does not
dwell in the past.
I had to yank it out by putting a recorder in front of him and asking questions.

-born by kerosene lamplight in rural ND in May, 1914. One of five children. One room farmhouse in those very early years. Water was drawn from a well. Bathing was like you see in the old movies: a galvanized tub, in the kitchen area in winter. Dad first, then the mother then the kids.. in the same water. Water is heavy. In winter the water came by melting snow in a wooden barrel kept in the house.

Before Ray was 6 or 8 or thereabouts the family had upgraded to a proper house. His dad had weaned off cattle ranching by that time and into farming. All the boys were cowboys by early training. Cattle ranching died because the open range was gone; fenced off in land-grant farms, one of which his mother had gotten. The old "160 acres" which a family claimed and held by working the land.

The general poverty was not realized by any of those rural folk because they'd known no other life. . They all lived fine and healthy enough, even though it was a hard life by our standards today. "It was hard but we did not know it". When a cow was slaughered the sectioned meat was hung on the latticework of the windmill water pump, in order to air-dry away from ground animals. Flies were abundant in the warm months.

Ray was sixteen when the Great Depression came. The times got very hard, and that new decline in living standards was particularly felt by a young fellow wanting to see trees and lakes and.. the world at large, more than endless plains and long winters. Ray had had enough of the farm.

He took leave from dad and mom in 1932. Without more than a few dollars in his pockets, he hitched auto rides and hopped freight trains, hobo style, to work his way south. He found haven in Nashville or Knoxville TN, (must clarify myself on that) where a relatively prosperous attorney. took in the young man to take care of his own young children as like a big brother.

Ray was able, thereby, to continue his schooling. The He was a good dancer so he made change on the side as a ballroom dance instructor. He was a fine athelete, so he made a few bucks in amateur boxing matches.

In 1938 (we think it was), Ray noticed a poster in town shop window exhorting young men to come "Join the Army Air Corps". Ray was keen on that, to learn to fly!

So he joined ad did a couple years service, soon earning his wings. Was furloughed in 1940, and Eastern Air Lines hired him instantly. Working as a co-pilot for that final year and a half or so, before Pearl Harbor Day (Dec. 7th, 1941,) Ray really enjoyed himself!

The war came. Furloughed airmen like Ray were instantly recalled to duty.
This, of course, was before the US Air Force was split off from the Army.

Ray was a test pilot, most generally working with the Lockheed engineering facility out in Anaheim (or Buena Park?)...

-A few years later, when the first -production Constellation- rolled off the line, Ray was the first test pilot to fly that famous plane. A history page I just found for general info about that bird:
http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/LOCKCONST.htm

Superbombers: The history of the long-range super bombers begins with the ill-fated B-15 of 1934. That gargantuan plane never made it to production. However, one prototype did exist. We do think that Ray is probably the last man living who flew that plane during its few years of being. The B-15 was scrapped and buried in 1945.
Ask Ray what it -felt like- to pilot that plane!

-now, the rest of Ray's life goes on mostly as a father and husband, with a return to Eastern Airlines employment after the war until his retirement in the middle 1970's. He always flew.

Age does bring new challenges.
His first reaction to my showing him all the "controls" and geegaws of his Scion?

"I think I'd better go back to ground school"





Ah, but a few days later (now) I talked to him a few hours ago

"Oh, I was out and about today, runnin' errands. You know, this sure is a good little car"

 

92?
He even looks YOUNGER standing next to the RS2 !
Now Go Get Those LADIES !

 

Hmmm... Do I know you?

 

Ya hear that, Ray?

I just came back from Ray's house.

"Lemme show what I found in today's paper. "
=He shows me the CarTalk comedy column some of you so much hate in your thread at https://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=59600
Ray had cut that article out and -notated his own comments into the margin in pencil-
a good practical car!

And he says further to me now,
"Of the three here ours is the only good lookin' one!. And the people all think they're so funny, I get that part but what the hell do they know? Have any of them driven or even been inside one?"

-SNAP-

Ray is -looking forward very much to Monday's SE meeting at the Miami Strike bowlarama place. He already has an "accessory" to show off. I am not telling just what -that is- but you'll see. You'll see....

 

Too cool. Tell Ray that Ivan, mentioned in a article below that, is a member of both Miami and Fort Lauderdale's clubs (as am I)...

He might get a kick meeting the owner of the 'Best xB' at Daytona Expossed.

I'll be at the mall early, to set up a parking area, or something, so we can all park together.