Monthly Crusin
Cruisin’ at the speed of fun
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Mass Cruisers Auto Club March 2021
Sailing Into COVID-19 Challenges with Nancy Bloom pages 4 & 5
America´s Bilingual Boating Magazine – America´s Bilingual
Glenn Brayman's “Garage Mahal” Gets a new COVID-19 Project Floor pages 6 & 7
ALSO INSIDE: YOUR BOARD MUSINGS COVID-19 MUSINGS MARCH & APRIL EVENTS MEMORY LANE—AUGUST 1994 We’re on the Web
Celebrating 30 Years of Cruisin’ Volume 30 Issue 3
www.masscruisers.com And Facebook
Cruisin’ at the speed of fun
Monthly Crusin Contact us by snail mail: P.O. Box 217, Wrentham, MA 02093 Or by email: HO350@comcast.net
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www.masscruisers.com
Monthly meetings in the Bass Pro Shops Conservation Room will be held throughout the year under COVID-19 Phase 3 guidelines currently limiting in-person attendance to just 10 members. Notify any of the seven member Board if you have an agenda item or want to attend in person. All of our 2021 cruise and car show events have been verified and will be posted on the website. DIRECTORY
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PRESIDENTIAL MUSING
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COVID-19 MUSING
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SAILING INTO COVID-19 Pages 4&5 CHALLENGES
2021 Board Members Larry Nyborn Steve Huntington John Buchanan Diane Thornton Rich Armando John Sturniolo Kevin Rushlow
2021 EVENTS PAGE
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Secretary: Lesley Corda-Majeski Asst. Secretary: Diane Thornton
COVID-19 PROJECT MODERNIZING MY MUSTANG
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Treasurer: Kevin Rushlow Asst. Treasurer: Rich Armando
MEMORY LANE 1994
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CRUISIN’ NEW ENGLAND
Special Assignments Webmaster: Scott Beer Asst: Steve Vining Managing Editor: John Buchanan News Editor: Open
SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS
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MARCH EVENTS PAGE
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Digital Graphics Editor: Open
MARK YOUR CALENDARS
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Facebook: Patrick Touhey FB Admin: John Buchanan FB Admin: Sean Sullivan
CLUB EVENTS
New Members: Lou Valentine
Sgts. at Arms: Rick Lawlor John Sturniolo Charity Coordinator: Open Food Pantry: Steve Fernald Bob Okerholm By-Laws: Wayne Lestan MAAC Rep: John Buchanan MAAC Alt.: Glenn Brayman Cruise Director: Steve Huntington Asst. Cruise Director OPEN Sponsors: John Buchanan Fred Tierney Club Events: Rich Armando Photographer: Steve Vining
Monthly Crusin
Cruisin’ at the speed of fun
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Board of Directors Musings By Rich Armando
As we start a new year still filled with uncertainty it’s important to keep moving forward. Since there were no candidates for the office of president and vice president your club is undergoing a change and is now being run by a 7 member board of directors as mentioned in the previous newsletters and emails. The only change that you will notice is the renewed enthusiasm that the board is bringing to the club. Through the pandemic the club has been able to add a few new members to our roster. If any of you know of a potential member please do your best to have them join. Owning a car is not a requirement. Soon we should be able to get back to having in person meetings. For now we are only allowed 10 people at Bass Pro Shop for the board meetings. With 7 board members that leaves room for 3 other members unless the board invites a subcommittee member to attend for their committee report. If any of you would like to attend and there is available room, please let a board member know so you can be added to the list, based on a first come first served. It would be nice to get together and visit some sort of point of interest. A few things we are looking into are a tour of some car collections both private and public. If they do materialize we will let you know. If any of you have an idea for a place of interest to share with the rest of the club please let us know. If you don’t have the experience in setting up a tour someone on the board will be willing to give you guidance with the planning. Also in the works are our bi-weekly cruise nights, Seekonk Speedway show and our Autofest car show partnered with the Newport Car Museum on August 22. Of course all is subject to COVID protocol at the time. One last thing I would like to mention is the audit of the clubs books. Within the next few weeks Jean, Fred and Kevin will perform the audit and will report back to the board and club once its completed. Let’s get back to being an active and enjoyable club to belong to. As the saying goes, “ you only get out of something what you put in”. Please do not sit behind the scene and let everyone else do the work, be part of the club by actively participating as your time allows.
Editor’s COVID-19 Musing EDITORIAL by John Buchanan
Some of our senior club members over the age of 75 started getting their 1st Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine injections during the Phase 2 roll out in early February with their 2nd shots scheduled for later in the month or early March. It has been a scramble for the later Phase 2 rollout for 65+ and multiple health issue members trying to secure these appointments using the state’s website and, although some had experienced no problems, others had to struggle through the internet minefield of confusion. The good news is that if the trend for new positive cases continue its downward track along with fewer deaths and hospitalizations, the spring and early summer cruise and car show event season may begin to start up as well. On the lookout for alternatives to a delayed start of the early spring Bass pro Shops cruise season, your Board is collecting member recommended alternative cruise events to consider promoting, very similar to what we did last year during the peak pandemic shutdown. We’ll start communicating them to everyone when all the details are worked out. Some of these cruises were invitations for our club to come and do something different, e.g. last year’s cruise to display our cars and watch Boston Polo Club matches in Georgetown was an example of something totally different. Also our club was invited by Katie Cerrone to her KC’s Burger Bar on US Route 6 in Seekonk last July to participate in the East Bay Chamber of Commerce monthly Zoom podcast for a spotlight of her business hosting a nostalgic cruise-in. Recently we’ve been invited to come back for a Sunday afternoon cruise-in sometime later in May.
Monthly Crusin
Cruisin’ at the speed of fun SAILING INTO COVID-19 CHALLENGES
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Photography Project by Nancy Bloom as reported by John Buchanan
Many of our newer members may not have had the opportunity to rub elbows with long time members John & Nancy Bloom due to spending their retirement years full-time at their North Truro summer home pursuing new careers. John, a former Verizon service technician, is the Assistant Harbormaster in North Truro and he also restores outer Cape rental homes that they own in his off-time. Nancy, a former business education & technology teacher at Franklin High School, has taken her photography hobby to a professional level as an editor-at-large for Yachting Times (international) magazine and Staff Photographer for the Provincetown Independent, the Outer Cape’s only independent weekly newspaper. Nancy also handles their weekend rental changeovers during the spring, summer and fall season which limits their participation in many club events, although John schedules trips to help out at our Thursday Bass Pro Shops cruise nights, a 200 mile round trip. Nancy also has a few cars, a 1956 Thunderbird, pictured above with hubby John behind the wheel, a 1979 Pontiac Trans AM, pictured right, and her latest addition, seated in her 1928 Ford Woody shown below. However, her COVID-19 shutdown adventure project has nothing to do with her cars but with her passion to photograph sailing regattas and races each summer for Yachting Times and the Provincetown Independent. Most of the 2020 races and regattas were cancelled due to the pandemic but the Herreshoff Classic Regatta was one sailing event that took place in August under strict local guidelines. The cover photo is the two-page Yachting Times Magazine (Autumn 2020 #37 pp 14-15) spread resulting from this COVID photo shoot. Unfortunately no media/photo boats were available to photograph the regatta, so Nancy and another photographer rented a Newport Helicopter Tours chopper for an hour to get a bird’s eye view of the race from 500 feet above Narraganset Bay, an unusual viewpoint at these events. This annual race started out with a feeder race from Newport to Bristol Rhode Island, home of the Herreshoff Museum, when Nancy’s aerial photo shoot took place. Nancy said it was either shooting the race from the air with the doors off from the helicopter or another day sitting at home waiting for this COVID quarantine thing to end! So splitting the $600 an hour cost for this aerial adventure was worth it. She texted, “I can’t wait to do it again.” Well, the quality and variety of sailing photos that Nancy has taken over the years at sea level are pretty spectacular, but her aerial shots give us a birds-eye view perspective that many never get to experience. She also regularly sells many of her photographs online Nancy Bloom Photography and in a number of Cape Cod gift shops. Log on to her webpage to see other photos ranging from seals and dolphin strandings, to parasailing and boating regattas. Thanks for sharing with us. Continued on Page 5
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SAILING INTO COVID-19 CHALLENGES Continued from Page 4
Owner & Chief pilot Jeff Codman at the helm of his RED Robinson R44 helicopter
These two aerial photos shared by Nancy were taken during the August 2020 Herreschoff Classic Regatta above Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island.
Monthly Crusin
Cruisin’ at the speed of fun
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Glenn Brayman’s COVID -19 Garage Floor Project By John Buchanan
It seemed to Glenn Brayman that the COVID-19 quarantine period would be a good time to upgrade the “Garage Mahal” floor. Glenn lives in the Plymouth Pinehills community that we hear all the time being promoted on WBZ radio, a 3,000 acre Plymouth enclave of private homes, condominiums and apartments constructed among the forested “Kettles” and “Karnes” deposited along the Old Sandwich Road off Route 3 during the last ice age 25,000 years ago. And, with the attached style homes like Glenn’s, there is limited garage space for anyone with collector cars to work on or store. Well, he got permission to transform the original two-garage configuration into a four -car garage to house two lifts with enough ceiling height to double stack/park his cars during the winter months. With all the custom cabinetry work completed for one bay dedicated to a combination entertaining/work bench area, the only thing lacking was a serviceable floor because the original painted floor was not holding up too well. After a thorough search for area floor installers Glenn settled on a highly recommended local contractor, Paul Whiteside and his Decorative Concrete Solutions , in North Easton, MA. Of course, the big problem was first clearing out all the floor space and putting his three cars, his iconic 1941 Ford Custom Coupe, 1987 Corvette and latest addition, a 1931 Ford Victoria Street Rod, into storage during the floor prep and finish work for the custom color non-porous epoxy modified cementitious floor finish.
Continued on Page 7
Monthly Crusin
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Glenn Brayman’s COVID -19 Garage Floor Project CONTINUED FROM Page 6
The finished results speak for themselves. The highly polished slip resistance finish is not only pleasing to the eye with its custom blend of RED, WHITE, BLUE & SILVER-GREY embedded colored chips, it is also easy to clean up those telltale tire tracks and fluid spills. I suppose you could also say you can eat off the floor, or the 5 second rule could be increased to 10 seconds.
Monthly Crusin
Cruisin’ at the speed of fun
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MEMORY LANE—AUGUST 1994 by John Buchanan
Paul Mannett’s CRUISIN’ NEW ENGLAND magazine came on the scene back in the early 1990’s and quickly became the go-to reference for upcoming cruise & car show events over the years. Anyone with a cool looking ride also wanted to see their car featured in one of the 10 monthly issues which included a coveted cover photo to go with a related article. Former Mass Cruisers member Neil Van Zile, who was one of the feature writer/photographers back in the early years of the CRUISIN’ mag before moving up north to N.H., featured one of our more recent long term club members cars, Bob Smith’s iconic 1951 Mercury Convertible lead sled. The article titled “Some Men Collect Wives”. appeared in the AUGUST 1994 issue with Bob’s 1951 Merc pictured on the front cover and featured the story about Bob’s penchant to build and collect show cars and trucks. The article also included photos of his long gone 1953 Ford Pickup truck and 1925 Model A Ford Tudor Sedan street rod. Long gone too were advertisers like the Speed Shack in Norwood, Nu-Chrome in Fall River and Visone Corvette in Saugus (see ad below), but Bob and his wife June can still be seen CRUISIN’ NEW ENGLAND in the ‘51 Merc.
July 20, 2020 Cruise-In at KC’s Burger Bar in Seekonk
Monthly Crusin
Cruisin’ at the speed of fun
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Monthly Crusin
Cruisin’ at the speed of fun
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Monthly Crusin
Cruisin’ at the speed of fun
Mark Your 2021 Club Events Calendars For: By Steve Huntington
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Cruisin’ at the speed of fun
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P.O. Box 217 Wrentham, MA 02093
Monthly Crusin