hen repairing body sheetmetal, little things can be big conveniences. Years ago, I purchased my first assortment of 18-gauge steel weld-in discs from metal master Ron Covell. It’s taken a while—maybe two whiles or more—but lately I’m running low on certain sizes, so I thought I’d best reorder.

“Is this Professor Hammer?” That’s pretty much the way the telephone call began. When I got around to saying, “This here’s Rotten Rodney,” I was tickled that he actually knew me. As it turns out, Ron Covell reads my stuff, same as I read his, and I’ll keep that as a feather in my cap from here on. Anyway, we had a nice conversation. For reordering, however, Ron Covell suggested that I call Bob Drake, who is now the source for the discs of desire—Drake’s Discs, as they’re known today.

So, now that we’re down to the short strokes, in the metalworking phases of our ’55 Chevy second-series build, we’re focused more on little things. For example, you know those three big, heavy, pot-metal badges that ordinarily adorn the hood and fenders of such trucks? Well, ours are pretty pitted. We know Brothers carries new ones, but our project truck’s owner is usually open for suggestions. Knowing so, we sort of suggested deletion of the big old badges in favor of a cleaner, sleeker look for his cute little truck.

riday, April 8, 2022, I jumped in my “non-denominational”–era (’11) GMC and headed due east from Riverside, California, to Chandler, Arizona, for the inaugural Reunion Classic Truck Show, organized by C10 Talk’s Ronnie Wetch and his wife, Autumn, Sam Castronova, and a group of close friends from Arizona.

With nothing more than a bunch of social media previews in my head in regards to what I was in store for, I braved the I-10 and its gruesome onslaught of 18-wheeler warriors (along with quite a few packs of bikers heading out to Arizona Bike Week) for four straight hours (I was driving a bit fast, when not stuck behind said semi!) before rolling into the beautiful Historic Downtown area of Chandler to check into the host Crowne Pointe hotel that afternoon, which is literally directly across the street from the show’s location, smack-dab in the middle of Historic Downtown Chandler. What first caught my attention was the plethora of restaurants, all within yards of the hotel/show site … like tons of non-chain restaurants, cafes, and boutique eateries (fancy food joints in layman’s terms!).