Upstate Update DECEMBER 2020 The Upstate New York Chapter News

DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE Chapter Leaders

Tony D’Amelio Director Director: Tony D’Amelio Greetings fellow Club members, and [email protected] Happy Holidays! Asst. Director: Well, it’s December and the year is almost over, Ed Allmond the are put up for their winter naps, and it’s time [email protected] to bring in a New Year. 2020 has been a very difficult Treasurer: year for many things, so here’s to 2021. Ken Malette Secretary: & Health and Speaking of new years, the Board has voted that Wellness committee: there will be no dues for 2021. The dues we collect Rosemary Malette pays for things like the picnic and the holiday party [email protected] and seeing as we had neither this year we decided to Membership : forgo dues for 2021. So, if you were a member in Chris Timber 2020, your good for 2021! Newsletter: I wish you all a blessed holiday season, and I es- John DeFiore pecially wish I could tell you that personally at the [email protected] Holiday Party. But there’s always next year. Hope to see you all soon! Tony N0TABLE:

New Newsletter Feature: Announcements I JUST LOVE THIS PHOTOGRAPH! See the announcement at the HEALTH AND WELLNESS NEWS: bottom of page 3. Send your en- Greetings friends: This function is to help spread the tries via e mail to the Editor at: news affecting our members. Things like: special [email protected] events, announcements, illnesses, and other events, all qualify. So if you want us to know about these things, e-mail your announcement to me at: AROUND THE CORNER 2021 [email protected] And with that, hope for a return to normal! And please notify me asap if you want your name removed from the Birthday e mails.

MEET THE MEMBERS Ed and Bonnie Allmond (Assistant Director 2020-2021) By Ed Allmond I have been a buff ever since I was a little kid. My earliest car memory is of a 1956 Chevy when I

Hawaii an Allmonds was three years old and living in Pennsylvania. I built a lot of model cars in my early days, and I liked certain TV shows because of the cars in the programs. After we moved to New York in 1959, whenever we took a trip back to my parents’ hometown of Altoona, PA, I could gauge how far we had left to go by using junk yards and aban- doned old cars along the route as reference points. As a teenager, I couldn’t wait to learn to drive and actually took my driving test us-

ing mom’s 1963 Plymouth . That car started a lifelong love affair with top

down driving. Prior to my driving test, though, I “learned to drive” on my buddy Gary’s 1951 Plymouth, a 3-speed on-the-column car. Since neither of us were old enough to have a license, we drove it up and down his driveway, which was just long enough to shift into third gear before having to hit the brakes to avoid driving onto the main road. I had to be around 15 or so at that time. I was not a Buick fan initially. My first two cars were Chevys; a 1957 model 150 and a 1958 Biscayne, both 6-cyl, 3-sp manual cars with no radios. The ‘57 got me through high school and a little beyond, while the ‘58 got me into my early twenties. My third car, a 1967 GS400 convertible with 4-sp, set the stage for the future me, though it took a while for it to happen. This was a red car, with a black bucket seat interior and black top, and to this day it’s been my favorite car to own. I think I paid $1300 for it and bought it from a guy who worked at Albany Felt Company. It had some bad body work on the left quarter panel from an accident prior to my ownership. I had it during my college years, and my friends and I would pound the snot out of that car. Remember, back then it was just a car. I finally traded it in during one of our country’s oil embargoes as I made very little My ‘67 (s) all in a row money and couldn’t afford to keep it. That and by this time it needed a lot of work. Sometime later I purchased a 1969 Chevy Camaro SS/RS 396 Indy Pace Car Replica with a 4-speed trans. It was another car that was not in the best of shape but still fun to drive. I sold the Camaro to get married to my first wife, then she and I bought a 1968 Chevelle convertible that went down the road when we split up. That ended the “cool” cars for a while, but that was okay because I met and married Bonnie! We moved into a complex in Clifton Park and one of my neighbors had a 1966 Caddy con- vertible that I had to look at every day. It got to be too much so the search was on for a convertible of my own. After looking at a few “roaches”, I saw an ad for a 1967 convertible that was in my price range. Remembering how much I loved my GS I went to look at it, and knew I was buying it the moment I saw it! It had everything I wanted; it was green, and the top went down! Bonnie was not very happy that I bought it, but eventually came around to it. As it turns out, she has “come around to it” many more times since then. She is a saint!

Utah Utah in 2014 I bought “Summer 67” in 1988 and it is still with me. Over the years it has faithfully transported me and others through 28 states in pursuit of the Buick Club National and Regional meets. And it led to the purchase of three other 67 : a Skylark 2- dr , a Skylark 4-dr parts car, and, as of October 2019, another GS400

convertible, this one an automatic. My other old- ie is a 1975 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, a 15,000-mile one owner car that I bought on a whim due to the price being right. As it turns out, the Caddy is Bonnie’s favorite of my oldies, and we take it whenever we go somewhere together that “requires” an old car. I like working on my cars and, learning everything I can about them. Though I am not the world’s best mechanic, I do most of my own repairs, with a little (okay, a lot!) help from my friends. Route 66 tour in 2019 On a more personal note, Bonnie was raised in Delmar, 2019 Hemmings fav GM award New York and attended Bethlehem High School. She went on to college, graduating from both Schenectady County Community College and SUNY Platts- burg with a degree in English. I was born in Maryland, moved to Pennsylvania shortly after, then moved to New York in 1959 at the age of six. I attended South Colonie Schools and have an Associate’s degree from Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, New York.

GS 400 OVERLOOKING THE MOHAWK VALLEY (note: it is difficult to notice the red line stripped tires)

Bonnie and I met at the New York State Labor Department and have been married 28 years. I have a daughter, Rebecca, from my first marriage, and one sibling, a sister Kathy. Bonnie has a brother, Tom, who lives outside of Hartford, Connecticut with his wife, Carol. Bonnie and I are cat lovers and currently have two. In 2010, I retired from New York State after 35 ½ years of service, all with the Labor Department. Bonnie is also retired from the Labor Department after a little over 36 years of ser- vice. I joined the Upstate Buick Club during its first year but am not a founding member. I am a past Treasurer, Membership Chair and Webmaster and currently hold the position of Assistant Director. Although Bonnie is not a fan of road trips, she loves to travel, and as a result, we have been to Europe, Scotland, Hawaii and many of the Caribbean Islands. Between those trips and my long-distance road trips with my Buick car buddies, I am truly a lucky guy! Cruisemaster Ed

I JUST LOVE THIS PHOTOGRAPH ! You are invited to add to this new feature. Find a nice spot and get a great pho- to of your car(s) or, pick an older picture you really like, and then send it to me with a short description of what makes it important using: [email protected] and we will feature as many of them as possible in up coming editions of the Upstate Update. This one is from Diane Proulx! A great place for a breakfast run in Glens Falls from a few years ago. WHEN THE STARS ALIGN

Having sold my 1953 2 door recently, I was on the lookout for another Buick as I enjoy the club, its great format, magazine, and membership. Additionally, Dad, who had many beautiful cars in the past but has not had a collectible one in many years, was looking to get back into the hobby. So, along with numerous car-shows and auctions, my Dad and I went to this year’s Spring and Fall Carlisle, just as we have for decades. During the event we always search the car coral numerous times each day looking for that "dream car" that is so difficult to find and obtain. This year we struck pay dirt! While inour hotel room on the Thursday night of this Fall’s show, we noticed a Face book post announcing that a 1966 GS (produced one year only) would be in the car coral the next morning. Dad said, “we should look at that car”. The next morning on our way to our spaces we ran into a slight traffic jam on the main road inside the fairgrounds. Dad decided to cut across a side row, near the car coral, to go down a less traveled area path. There, a few rows over, was the Wildcat GS just pulling up to its space! As we approached the owner and introduced ourselves, we quickly realized thru conversation that we had met a very knowledgeable and honest man who was an ex- pert on 1966 Buicks. His name is John Kuchniak and is a fellow national club member. He mentioned how he got a late start and should have arrived an hour ago. That's when I realized the stars were aligning for us! A huge crowd was quickly gathering around the car and showing a great deal of interest in it. Meanwhile John patiently an- swered all of our questions and told us eve- rything he knew about the car, including its previous owners and history. John insist- ed that we take the car out with him and drive it down the road so we would feel con- fident if we decided to purchase it. After an extensive test drive, a deal was struck be- fore we returned to the fairgrounds on one condition. "If I sell you the car, you have to ride me home as I have no other way to get there”. We quickly agreed to that stipulation! At some point Dad learned that John was contemplating a move and was reluctantly scaling down on some of his collection. And as the time arrived to meet John’s “condition” Dad said that he would be glad to drive John home, but it might be better if I did as I would be able to view another car he was contemplating on selling. I knew I would miss out on the rest of the show that day, but I agreed to ride John home. That turned out to be a great decision as John had another 1966 Buick Wildcat Coupe. This one was from California with working factory A/C, power windows, pow- er seats and a totally rust free body. The work he put into this car to improve it and make it his own was impressive! And as was obvious, the car was not yet finished. The car still need- ed some assembly of minor areas, the biggest of which was the interior where John was updating the headliner, carpet, and seats. I called my father and said, you should buy this car. If you don't, I will! Dad said, “go for it”, and another deal was made. A month later we made the trip to pick up the car. John followed through on eve- rything he said he would do. He also, once again. insisted we drive the car to make sure we knew what we were buying. There were no disappointments on our end, but I suspect John will miss both of these cars. And, Dad has a new fire under him, which is so nice to see. Plans are to spend this winter working on his Wildcat to complete it. We are grateful to have made a great friend in John and will keep in touch with him as progress is made. Buick members never stop looking and searching as one day the stars may align for you! Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas!

Stay well, Chris Busta Homeward Bound 2014 (Day 8): Don’t be fooled by that time estimate on the map. This one stretch should have been a two day trip itself. So much to see and do and thus we missed most of it. Still. it is one day I hope to always remem- ber for the beautiful landscapes and other things we did see.

It was a rainy day and the Grand Tetons were obscured in fog. We did see this one lone buffalo.

Old Faithful blows off on its own schedule.

And the park staff can predict the erup- tions within a 10-15 minute window. We drove up, parked, and walked to the site and within 3 minutes the eruption began. I still marveled at how many people were there on the boardwalk waiting to catch mother earth’s act Yellowstone Lake, and the Snake River

Various views on Rt 20. Yes, this is the same Rt20 that passes through NY

To be continued