Acquired A Book

[i86hotdogs]

Last week, the wife's grandpa passed away. He was 80 years young, and couldn't recover from a minor cardiac event he had two weeks prior. He was a pastor at a local church in Michigan, and the people showed up in droves for his funeral service. The wife's taking it very hard, but I'm doing everything I can to support.

The guy worked at Oldsmobile for over 25 years. We loved talking cars whenever I visited. When we first met, he asked me the question, "I drove an Olds for over 18 years and never changed the oil in it. What do you have so say about that?" It became a running joke between the two of us in the 5 years I've known him. Always asking if I found an explanation for it. I'm still looking for that answer.

After the funeral service, the extended family all hung out at the Grandma's house swapping stories and keeping each other company. It didn't take long for Grams to start dishing out his belongings. The wife got herself a handful of his flannel shirts, I took home a tie with bald eagles on it. Then Grams handed me what I thought was a gigantic bible (him being a pastor and all). Turned out to be this

An in depth history of Oldsmobile from 1897-1997. This wasn't some basic history book with pictures. This included build quantities of every vehicle Olds sold, where each vehicle was build, and in depth stats on said vehicles.

This letter was placed behind the front cover too.

I've got some reading to do

[pip bip]

@i86hotdogs

worth a few $$ too.

[e90m3]

@i86hotdogs My parents bought this new in 2001:

It was:

I practically learned to drive in it as when I got my permit, my mom had me drive her around in it. It leaked oil, ate an an AC compressor, and was eventually done in by a slipping transmission in 2013.

[i86hotdogs]

@e90m3 My folks bought the Pontiac variant of that. Took all of a year before the electronics started tapping out

[dejock]

@i86hotdogs said in Acquired A Book:

Last week, the wife's grandpa passed away. He was 80 years young

my sincere condolences.

I took home a tie with bald eagles on it.

pics or ban.

[trivet]

@i86hotdogs
So very sorry for your and your wife's loss.

That is a great book - I picked one up at a used book store for a $5 a couple of years ago. I love the detail and history in it. A great book to have!

[Vondon302]

@i86hotdogs A 76 Cutlass Supreme was my first car. Sorry for your loss.

[theturbomrt]

@i86hotdogs said in Acquired A Book:

The guy worked at Oldsmobile for over 25 years. We loved talking cars whenever I visited. When we first met, he asked me the question, "I drove an Olds for over 18 years and never changed the oil in it. What do you have so say about that?"

It leaked badly enough that he never drained, only filled. Not one oil "change"

[Urambo Tauro]

@i86hotdogs That's cool! Kinda funny how optimistic the book is, looking back on its "first" 100 years as if there were many more to come... Can't blame them for not knowing that Oldsmobile wasn't going to be around much longer, but the timing sure feels more than a little ironic in retrospect.

[ibRAD]

@Urambo-Tauro I thought it was kind of sad, not funny! Oldsmobiles were good cars.

[i86hotdogs]

@Urambo-Tauro It's kind of humorous how optimistic they were for their next 100 years

[ranwhenparked]

@Urambo-Tauro I mean, they were in trouble in 1997, but the era when they had the best selling car on the market was still very recent history, and their whole lineup had been recently refreshed and modernized, so you can see why they were optimistic that a turnaround was achievable.

[MM54]

@i86hotdogs First off, sorry to hear about your wife's dad, sounds like a great guy.

Secondly, you could use this book as a starting point for the same thing but their "last 100 years" which is just that book with the first 10 years removed from the start and the last 10 added in the end.