White Mud's Next Band Wagon...

Ok, by now you're probably thinking...what's with these clowns and old vans and panel trucks?... Well after we destroyed our 1st  band van, we realized that we had so much fun, that we decided to bite on a deal to buy a 1949 Dodge Panel Wagon to be our next band wagon. Some guy had a for sale sign on the old horse for $200.00 and it only had 100,000 original miles on it in 1969 when we bought it. The original tires were dry rotted and it was sun faded pretty bad but we figured it would get us around for a month or so and a few more bad gigs before we would burn it and leave it abandoned in a local ditch, so we picked it up. Vondy 14, Walt Batanicle and I, Doctor Hormone all pitched in and after dumping about $300.00 bucks for tag and title, we brought it home, and began work on our late summer 1969 summer project.

We liked the idea of no windows in the side, and the musky smell reminded us of the fun we had in the last van, so it was perfect for us! We decided to paint the inside red, white and blue so when we were stopped by local police, we could testify to our patriotic allegiance and perhaps escape arrest for whatever reason...

We spent a lot more time prepping the outside of the van for a repaint than we should since we ended up painting it black with a garden sprayer, and the paint job ended up looking like something the special ed class at Masonic Heights Elementary School may have done.

Nevertheless, the job was done when we brought out the now infamous "White Mud" stencil and marked each side door as well as the back doors, with a nice clean white decal of our band name! What a beauty!

We carpeted the back floor with red white and blue shag rug from K-Marts, and oiled up the sidewalls of the tires (they didn't have Armor All yet ) and we were ready to roll! All we needed now was some place to drive it! All dressed up and no place to go.

My parents thought it would be a good idea to go to Grand Bend Canada for a little    
 vacation with the family, but by that time sister Janeen and I had other ideas besides doing the family vacation, so we only agreed to go if we could have our own quarters, and bring along an ontourage of friends.

 As you might guess, this turned into a White Mud field trip with a few of the boys from
 the band and groupies...

 Since this story is an "in progress" work, and I need to consult with the memory of others... it is to be continued... Stay tuned!