'68 Camaro - Another one?! Again?! Really?

[Leroy Rochester]

Actually, one more thing I need to get off my chest early before I sign off...

The stripe.

Yes, it's horrible. I still have nightmares about it and I still hate it...

Not the fact that it has the stripe, but the B/S repaint version. In NY it seemed like everyone had a "body and fender guy" that would do little spring refreshes on your cars. Paint, rust proof, dent and ding repair.

For years my grandparents and parents used a guy named Willie Clemmons down off of Salina St. in Syracuse. Willie was a nice guy and hell, you get what you pay for right?! Over the years, the car took on sort of a multi-colored, wavy appearance as a result of this ad hoc annual bodywork.

When I was around 17 or 18, I talked my dad into trading some accounting work for a repaint from one of his clients. The car went to Hawk Frame and Collision in the south eastern suburbs or Rochester (can't remember exactly where) and was introduced to a concept that I've never fondly referred to as the "paint car wash".

It came home with many insteresting acts of aggresion that could loosely be referred to as "bodywork" but the real touchstone for how half-assed it was was that horrible, mis-aligned, unbroken nose stripe.

So now you all know that I know, and you all know why. Ahhhh, feels better to get that monkey off my back! Until a few weeks ago, it was a standing source of embarassment. As of now, the car is virtually stripe free, but that's a story for later!