[Alex Newborn]

I was reviewing my other pics from the parade, including one of UNA's most 'famous' alum as the grand marshall (as usual) and it just occurred to me...

That means this parade included both GOOBER:


And the GHOST-CHASERS!


Alex

[Alex Newborn]

Uploaded some video that I shot of Donkey's Ecto at Saturday's UNA Homecoming Parade...

[Youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSgVq7g6t6Y[/Youtube]

Now, a note about the jokes this video makes at the expense of George Lindsey, best known as "Goober" Pyle on the Andy Griffith Show...

I was attending UNA the very first year that they had their most famous alum come back for a visit, about 1991 or so. I've met him several times since then, such as when I was an entrant in the very first George Lindsey Film Festival in 1998, or backstage at some of his local TV appearances.

I've heard him lecture eloquently, spoken to him at length about many aspects of his career, including Twilight Zone, voice work for Disney films, and working with Jack Nicholson on the film 'Ensign Pulver'-- including a wonderful anecdote about the director giving a scene to him instead of Jack.

I've even commiserated in shock with him when we were bluntly informed together that a mutual acquaintance had died the night before.

I've seen him 'switch on' the Goober persona for photo ops with fans, and I've seen him switch it off and subside into blissful anonymity for a quiet dinner while all the starstruck sycophants from UNA were fawning over 'new meat' Ernie Borgnine instead.

The bottom line is, I learned long ago that George is not Goober and Goober is not George. It's just a gig for him.

But sometimes when the pun is staring you right in the face, you have to go for it anyway.

Alex

[Jasonrglass]

Great looking ecto!!

[Donkey8012]

Got a new muffler and pipe installed today. After seeing what they did to the REAL Ecto in Hollywood, I was really paranoid about letting the mechanic drive it up onto the lift. Thankfully, he knew how to not drive like a moron. I'll post pics of what the back-fire did to the old muffler later.

[Boomerjinks]

Haaaaawesome!

[Donkey8012]

Here's why you don't put cheap gas in a classic car:




Also, here's a pic of us at Disturbia in Huntsville, AL with the owner of the haunted house and Danielle Harris. It's bad quality, but it WAS a cell phone.

[Donkey8012]

I showed up at a trunk or treat at a local church for a friend of mine yesterday. I tried to drive underneath an overhang-type extension of the building. BIG MISTAKE. I jacked up my white dome all to hell and back. It bent the plate backwards 90 degrees and ripped the wood almost completely off. I didn't take any pics, but here is a video that somebody shot of me and my wife at the appearance. You can see it for a few moments. I wanted to vomit.

http://youtu.be/RSkT9ILi-8A

[Donkey8012]

The reason for getting the rack repaired so quickly was for a photo shoot with my local newspaper today:

http://timesdaily.com/stories/who-you-gonna-call,183596

[Donkey8012]

It's been a while since I updated this thread, but alot has been done with the car. I have reconnected the siren on the roof with the button that operates in the floor; just had to replace a solenoid. I have also relocated the speaker for the p.a. system from under the hood to the side of the fan box in the roof rack . It is much louder and clearer. I'm currently working on fabricating legs for the stretcher that will fold down when it is half-way pulled out. It's not the correct kind of stretcher. Also, see this thread for the latest hurdle for my Ecto:

http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtop ... 13&t=31358

[Donkey8012]

Here's a pic of the newly-relocated mega-phone. It now sounds much clearer and much louder than when it was under the hood. On a side note, I need to clean the trash out of my roof rack...

[Donkey8012]

After years of service, this car has been retired.

Most of you probably already know what happened. For those of you that don't, we were coming back from a birthday party Saturday in Iuka, MS when the trailer upon which Ecto was secured started to fishtail. I gave it gas and activated the trailer brakes like I've done every other time before when the trailer began to sway, but it was no use. It came around, and my Avalanche flipped several times. The Ecto was thrown from the trailer and landed hard on the ground, severely warping the body.

[Alex Newborn]

My 13yo son Zak and I were the passengers in the Avalanche. All three of us had on our seatbelts, and miraculously survived with aches and scrapes.



This was one week to the day after Ryan Kemp's fatal wreck, at approximately the same time of afternoon. I was even wearing my grey flightsuit to honor Kemp, as he had advised me on how to dye it.



Pic taken of the Ecto by the birthday boy's mom. One of the last shots ever taken of her intact.

I am sharing these next pics just because of how miraculous it is that we were all pulled from the Avalanche as relatively unscathed as we were-- although I recall with shame that it took two grown men to birth my lardbutt out horizontally through that tiny sunroof opening.

But one of my lifelong friends lost a brother in a car wreck and we as a GB community recently lost someone this way, so just in case anyone doesn't want to stumble across such images unprepared, I'm putting them in the Spoiler box.

These were taken by the Cherokee, AL Search and Rescue team, some of the first responders.

This Post Contains Spoilers

One important thing to note is that the trailer itself never rolled, and it also never separated from us. Only the Avalanche rolled. My belief is that Ecto, despite creating the fishtail that caused the wreck, also acted as a three-ton anchor to stop us from rolling further. As I said on FB, her last act was as an ambulance not a hearse. She saved lives.

We were sloshed around so suddenly, I only have flashes of the roll itself. But I do remember fiercely, immediately afterward, Brandon showing far more terror that Zak might be hurt than he did about seeing the damage to Ecto.

Zak asked me once we were out how come we weren't dead. I said it was because God wasn't through with the three of us yet.

The outpouring of well wishes we've received on Facebook has been tremendous. Everyone's saddened about the loss of that beautiful Ecto, but happy that all souls aboard survived. The only truly irreplaceable items we had onboard-- me, Zak, and Brandon-- lived to tell the tale.

Alex

[BSjohnson]

Wow! So very glad you guys were able to walk away from that! Sorry about the Ecto and the Avalanche, but you're right Alex - the only thing that matters is that you guys are okay.

[Kingpin]

Sorry to hear about the car, but glad you guys weren't hurt.

[spark]

Man, good thing you guys are all ok.

And sorry to hear about the car. That is one beautiful vehicle.

[Donkey8012]

Ok guys, It's been a while since I've posted. It's been mainly because of "life getting in the way", and that's still happening (We're currently renovating our new house, I teach an hour away from where I live, I coach four sports, we have a 9-month-old, etc.) However, I've still been lurking from time to time, and I'd like to post an update on this situation.

First of all, in case you didn't know and didn't read the above posts, I jack-knifed a trailer carrying my beloved Pontiac Bonneville Ecto. It flipped my truck at least twice and threw the Ecto off the trailer. As sick as I was about the truck (It was the nicest vehicle I've ever owned and I got it to pull the Ecto on a trailer. It had air conditioned seats for God's sake.), I was even more sick about Ecto. As a matter of fact, as soon as the truck stopped flipping and we gathered our bearings and made sure we were all ok, first thing I said to Alex was , "God Alex. I don't want to see what the car looks like."

The trailer actually broke loose when the truck flipped. The trailer then hit a bank and threw Ecto from the trailer. I had it strapped on the four corners with high-density straps, but three of them broke from the force. When Ecto hit the ground, it then launched the roof rack off the car. It was found a long way from the wreck.

I go an estimate on getting the car fixed, but it is way out of my price range. To get the frame straightened out and the body re-worked, the glass replaced, and an mechanical things fixed, it would be in the $10,000 range. I can't justify spending that. So, what did I do? I bought another car to convert. It's a 1968 Cadillac Miller Meteor. I'm hoping that I can fast-track fixing this car and have it done before October, but I'm not getting my hopes up. It needs a LOT more work than the Pontiac did when I got her. We've already discovered that the engine is bad, so we're having to pull the engine from the Pontiac to drop in the Caddy. I'll be creating a build thread to post updates on the Caddy, so stay tuned. In the mean time, here's some pics of the wrecked car (Alex has been calling it the "Wrecto", which I have to admit is clever.) and some pics of the new car (Alex dubbed this one the "Resurrecto", which is, again, very clever.) as well as some pics of the work we've already done. Enjoy!

P.S.
If anyone is looking for parts for a 1967 Pontiac pro car or a GM490 enging, please let me know. I've got lots of chrome and intact glass.