Mission accomplished, 43 years later!
Mopar friends: I've just returned from a trip that I've been planning for the last few years, and I'm passing along several photos that you might find interesting. My first car was a 1974 Gold Duster that I bought in the summer of 1977 before my senior year at college. After I graduated in May of 1978, I entered the Navy and remained on active duty until 1984. Last year I retired after 36 years working for Northwest and Delta Airlines. I always had this obsessive desire to re-create my first car and take it on a tour of my Navy duty stations upon my retirement. In 2019, I found and restored a 1974 Gold Duster remarkably like my original car. Yesterday, I returned from my retirement tour in the new Duster after putting 4540 miles on it in 11 days. She ran like top the entire time without a single mechanical problem. Amazing! My primary mission was to re-create the only surviving photo of my original Duster by using my new car. The first photo is of my original car, shot in the summer of 1978 behind the BOQ (Bachelor Officers Quarters) at Cecil Field Naval Air Station just west of Jacksonville, FL. Cecil Field was decommissioned in 1999. The new owners razed most of the original buildings, including the BOQ. Still, I was able to use the original photo to determine the precise location of where I took this snapshot. And so I drove the new Duster to this exact location and positioned it just as the original car was positioned in the 1978 photo. Note the tree in the background in both photos. This is the same tree 43 years later, although the entire area is quite overgrown and darker than it was in 1978. Also note that the license plate numbers match between the old and new cars. The asphalt under the car in the new photo is hidden under a layer of soil and tree debris, but its still there. Now that its done, I'm not really sure why I did this. As I mentioned, I just seemed to have this obsessive need to recreate this photo, I just don't why. The experience certainly did call to mind many of the guys whom I had the pleasure of serving with, some of whom were killed in the line of duty, sadly. Maybe I was thinking about them. In any case, the task is now finished and the circle has been completed so to say. The base is gone, the guys who are still alive are scattered about the country, but at least this part of the story now has an ending. A fitting one to my way of thinking. The final photo is of one of the aircraft that our squadron flew, now on static display at Cecil. Enjoy the pictures and feel free to comment below. Thanks!
Mopar friends: I've just returned from a trip that I've been planning for the last few years, and I'm passing along several photos that you might find interesting. My first car was a 1974 Gold Duster that I bought in the summer of 1977 before my senior year at college. After I graduated in May of 1978, I entered the Navy and remained on active duty until 1984. Last year I retired after 36 years working for Northwest and Delta Airlines. I always had this obsessive desire to re-create my first car and take it on a tour of my Navy duty stations upon my retirement. In 2019, I found and restored a 1974 Gold Duster remarkably like my original car. Yesterday, I returned from my retirement tour in the new Duster after putting 4540 miles on it in 11 days. She ran like top the entire time without a single mechanical problem. Amazing! My primary mission was to re-create the only surviving photo of my original Duster by using my new car. The first photo is of my original car, shot in the summer of 1978 behind the BOQ (Bachelor Officers Quarters) at Cecil Field Naval Air Station just west of Jacksonville, FL. Cecil Field was decommissioned in 1999. The new owners razed most of the original buildings, including the BOQ. Still, I was able to use the original photo to determine the precise location of where I took this snapshot. And so I drove the new Duster to this exact location and positioned it just as the original car was positioned in the 1978 photo. Note the tree in the background in both photos. This is the same tree 43 years later, although the entire area is quite overgrown and darker than it was in 1978. Also note that the license plate numbers match between the old and new cars. The asphalt under the car in the new photo is hidden under a layer of soil and tree debris, but its still there. Now that its done, I'm not really sure why I did this. As I mentioned, I just seemed to have this obsessive need to recreate this photo, I just don't why. The experience certainly did call to mind many of the guys whom I had the pleasure of serving with, some of whom were killed in the line of duty, sadly. Maybe I was thinking about them. In any case, the task is now finished and the circle has been completed so to say. The base is gone, the guys who are still alive are scattered about the country, but at least this part of the story now has an ending. A fitting one to my way of thinking. The final photo is of one of the aircraft that our squadron flew, now on static display at Cecil. Enjoy the pictures and feel free to comment below. Thanks!
