10/28/2017
I thought it would be neat to start a Hard Hat Memories string and got a little carried away. Once I started, I felt I needed to complete the thought so I did. Tell a story like we did in the olden days.
In 1984, Dalton turned 200. Wayne Prue wanted to build a float for the bicentennial parade and a few of us had a meeting to discuss the matter. Me being a history nut, suggested we create the first meeting to incorporate Dalton that. lucky for us, was held in the Perez Marsh Tavern in then what was called The Ashuelot Equivalent (Dalton now). We acquired a 1934 farm truck from Norm Kirchner's farm on Kirchner Road, and stripped it down to the chassis. The engine was in bad shape, so Pete McCauley donated a 400-cubic inch engine from his Ford Country Squire Station wagon and several of us, led by C. L. Fitzpatrick (Fitzy), managed to adapt the mounts and driveshaft for the power.
Our plan then was to weld up scrap steel to make a frame for a flat deck that we could build on. The driver would be under the deck looking through a dark screen windshield. Stealth like?
The designed was left up to me but the work was done by Fitzy, Joe Frusciente, Dick Witherell, Les Briggs, Pete White(me), and others who would on occasion drop by the Hard Hat garage and pitch in.
Stevie Cotter who had welding experience, came into the garage one night and asked to help.
The uprights had already been installed with 2” pipe welded across the uprights to support the wooden deck frame. Short 3” pieces of angle iron were now being welded to the pipe to bolt down 2X4 lengths front to back to support a plywood deck. Welders, as a rule, have wearing apparel they always use for their jobs. Stevie had a favorite helmet, and a very used green plaid shirt and was ready to attack the 3” angle job, and so he began. As I was working on the driver’s compartment, I went back to my job.
Within minutes, I looked up to find Stevie totally engulfed in flames. I ran over to Steve and proceeded to put him out. At this point, we called it a night.
The trucks pedals and steering were mounted in their normal position, behind the engine. We considered the fact that the parades would take place in late June and July’s hot weather. We decided to move all controls ahead of the engine and create a firewall behind the driver leaving only the radiator opening to keep the engine temperature low. This would also, theoretically, draw fresh cooler air through the dark screen windshield and it worked great.
I used a bottom porcelain drawer face from a stove I found at the dump at the end of Park Avenue. For quite a period, all old appliances were piled at the dump. We called this pile “Appliance World”. If parts failed on you home appliances, most likely you could retrieve a replacement part and I did this often.
Once the deck and driving compartment were finished, we proceeded to build a wall from side to side about 10 feet in from the back. The backside of the wall was shingled with wood shakes to simulate a colonial building with a door and window. The wall was going to make it too high for the garage door, so I hinged the wall, so it would fold down and I made braces looking like picket fences to support the shingled side, and a bar design I copied from the Hall Tavern at Old Deerfield Village. A building that once stood in Charlemont Massachusetts.
The taverns in colonial times were used for meeting places and many had grates that folded down from the ceiling to secure the alcohol from the business at hand. This allowed me to build the bar with corner posts that reached the height of the wall to create bracing on the opposite side of the picket fence side making a very sturdy setup. 4 lag bolts held each picket brace, 4 lag bolts held the bar, and once removed, the bar would lay down toward the front of the deck, and the wall would fold down to then drive in and out of the garage.
When Parade day came, we drove it out, set up the wall and bar, put a big oval table with chairs on the deck and all of us rented period costumes that included our main Monk, to reenact the 1784 first town meeting for Dalton’s incorporation. We were pretty sure there was a monk. The floats bar was open the days of parades.
Because we were simulating the first town meeting, the Dalton Bicentennial Committee placed us as the first float in the parade behind the Police Department and Fire Department. The parade started at the Wahconah Country Club at Orchard and Old Windsor Road, and ended at the Dalton Community House then turning down Flansburg Avenue and disbursing.
Fitzy drove down Main Street through a huge town celebration and at Flansburg Ave, we still had enough booze left to make a second trip. So, it was decided to head for High Street, up Pleasant Street, over Franklin, up North Street to Orchard and back to the Country Club. When we got there, they still had several groups still waiting for their slot in the parade lineup, so we waited and became the last entry to ride through town. The faces the second time through looked a bit confused. Both on the float and off. Go figure.
The Dalton Bicentennial Parade was held in June and in July the Pittsfield 4th of July Parade Committee invited us to their parade. During the staging period on South Street in Pittsfield, I had noticed the parade committee grouped together and looking at our float. Eventually they approached me to ask what I had in my tankard that we all had for period props. I had simply handed my tankard to them and told them it was diet Coke and it was. A couple of the committee sniffed the tankard and said let it go.
I had given up drinking in 1980 and of the 15 to 20 of us to approach, they chose me. Most of the others were seated on the float because they were so inebriated, they could not stand up.
Sometimes you win.
Peter White
