The Saga of the 1926 Model “T” Ford Parade Vehicle ---
By Keith K. Stanton and Other Members of Dick Munkres Post ---
A number of active members of Dick Munkres Post 287, The American Legion, talked about buying a old car to fix up for Post Members to use in parades. Everyone started looking for one, and Milt Clevenger found a 1926 Model T Ford in a barn up by Darlington, Missouri. We talked it over and decided to chip in our own money and buy it. I can’t remember for sure, but I think it was $75. We planned to put it in the Post’s name, but found out we could not buy liability insurance on it if we did, so we put it in Milt’s name, on the deed. A number of us went to work on it after work in the basement of the old REA building at 5th and Market Street. It had a top on it and we took it off at the bottom of the windows and put a board around it so we could sit up on it as we drove in parades. We left the two front seats in and took out the back one. We built a mount so we could put a double-barreled 12-guage shot gun in it firing down on the ground under the car. We used blanks in it and it made a lot of noise. I stepped out of the back basement door and fired it into the air to see how hard it kicked. Gladys Marcum and her mother lived up at the other end of the alley and they jumped over the table when I fired. I ducked back inside so they could not see where the noise had come from, and they never knew what it was. We welded two short pipes on each side by where the windshield had been to carry the flags in. I can’t remember who painted it for us, but it was a paint job to be hold, and still is to this day. ***
The first parade I remember was at night in Atchison, Kansas. As we were turning the corner, in the dark, we ran into someone standing in the middle of the street, he started yelling at us and the man that directed us to turn told him “get out of the way you fool, I told them to turn that way.” He was not hurt and we went on to join the parade. On the way home we stopped at Zims, a road house on the west side of the belt highway, north of Frederick, after a short time one of our group was kicked out by the bouncer. It seemed he thought his wife, a waitress there, had been touched on the breast. I still can hear Oscar saying, “I didn’t do anything.” ***
One time in Saint Joseph a young lady standing along the parade route, turned to run as we were firing the shot gun and throwing the empty shells at their feet and ran into a sign post, staggered back and said, “my god they got me.” ***
The low band went out of the transmission one time as we were loading to go to Kansas City. It was too late to repair it so we took it on to the parade anyway. In order to get over the hills we had to use the reverse gear and back up all the hills. That turned out to be a big hit as everyone thought we were just clowning around. ***
Long time member Reed Davison had a truck with a grain box on it and hauled our prize all over the country to parades for us. We would look for a bank or service station with a wheel rack to unload it. One time in Kansas City we used a rack at a service station to unload on. When the parade was over we went back and loaded it up for the trip home. We left it parked there while we went on to other things. When we got back for it we had one mad station man. We carried a cooler in the back seat, and had left some beer in it. It seemed his young men that were washing cars got into it, drank some and then went on to party and left him with no one to wash cars. We never asked him again to unload there. ***
We kept it in an old barn that was on the Chipps place we had bought as part of the race track until we tore it down. Later a garage was built on the south side of the race track parking lot to keep it and the Auxiliary hospital equipment in. It was kept there until we sold the race track in 1994. By then Milt and all but one of the original people involved with it had died. I never rode in it again after we moved to Maryville in 1977. Throughout the years Milt felt more and more it was his, his name is on the title, and the title is in his family’s possession. Milt’s son John was told we had sold the garage it was in and it would have to be moved. I am not sure who or how, but it was moved over into the 4H Barn we had given the County for the use of Andrew County Youth. No one seemed to claim it, it still had Dick Munkres Post name all over it, and after a few years two of our members moved it out and into a private basement for storage. ***
