Tours, Events, and Meetings!
(Members feel free to contact the webmaster to contribute!)
Karen Bockman drive by birthday parade
Sunday March 17th, 2024
We had an "Awe Inspiring Afternoon" as about 18 Model A's and 3 modern cars from Happy Honkers and Charter Oak Clubs were led by President Ray Ramos and First Lady Rosa, of Happy Honkers, to caravan to the Bockman Ranch flying helium balloons, honking and waving to a tearful Karen and her family.
We were touched as much as Karen and her family were by the immense turnout of loving members and friends.........
Visalia St. Patrick’s day parade 2024
St Paddy's Day was a great success with about 9 cars from Charter Oak and HCCA. Our newest Member/Family, Elaine and David Mello from Exeter, were there and participated in the car decorating and eventually ending at the IHOP Restaurant with our favorite waitress, "Carol" having the Patio tables all set for 14 0f us.
2023 CCRG Jamboree
We started out at Visalia Plaza Park and left there at 9:00am with about 7 Model A's, a cab-over camper truck and a huge moterhome driven by the Shawl's, several modern cars and about 22 members in total.The first leg of our trip President Gary led us to Kingsburg to our favorite Swedish Pancake restaurant, Kady's. Yummy food and great service.We left Kady's and traveled north through the back country to Clovis and the Clovis Rodeo Grounds where this big event was to take place.Fresno Sierra Chapter ended up having almost 200 Registration Applications, 150 Model A's and about 350 total Model A Club members from all over California.That Friday we hurriedly bought raffle tickets for Saturday nights Banquet and raffle give-away, and that evening we attended the Big CCRG BBQ at the same Rodeo Grounds building, after participating in some of Sierra Club's "Car Games".Saturday we spent most of the day on a pre-planned Tour of our choice. Our Tour stretched from the Rodeo Grounds to north; Fresno to downtown Fresno; to Reedley; to east Clovis and back.All-in-all there was about 30 members in-all from Charter Oak and Happy Honkers. Our Group had a stupendous time with most of us dressed in "Period Style Clothing"!!
2022 Christmas party
December 10,2022
by: Jason Deisman
We celebrated our annual Christmas party at the Lamp Liter inn. Wonderful meal and celebration with friends. We honored 6 members of the Charter Oak A’s who have guided and help mold the club for the last 48 years. We also welcomed 10 new families to the club! So we are going strong. We all enjoyed Phil Kneeland’s year end wrap up video of out past tours and events. Also enjoyed a great Christmas raffle and each other’s company. Looking forward to our next year and continue enjoyment.
Don Poole celebration of life
October 16th 2022
By: Jason Deisman
While normally you might not put in a Celebration of life as a event to publish, this individual was one of our legacy members. While not a member of the Charter Oak A’s since the very beginning… pretty close. Don Poole was one of a few long standing members who helped mold our club to what it is today. We honor him for his service to God, country, family and the Charter Oak Model A Ford club.
CCRG FALL GRAND TOUR to Murphy’s, Ca
Oct 4th - 7th 2022
By: Phil Kneeland
We returned yesterday, Friday, from a wonderful and superbly organized Model A Tour to Murphy's, CA. We left on Tuesday, October 4th for a four day trip through our central valley and into the Gold Country Hills around Sonora, CA.There were four Model A's, and one modern car, that caravanned up there in our group. (There were about 30 Model A's in all on this Tour) We stopped, Tuesday morning, and met some of the Fresno folks in Kingsburg at Kady's Restaurant, Kingsburg, for a delicious breakfast, to set the trip in motion; stopped at Merced for gas and arrived at Murphy's, CA, in the early afternoon (with no car troubles along the way).The some odd 60 members of various CCRG Clubs checked into the Hotel and rested up for a fun Happy Hour/Dinner at the old historic Murphy's Hotel in downtown Murphy's. We met and got to know most of the 60 members of the Tour that evening and the next day had a free day to explore some of the various activities that were lined out for us in a nicely published booklet provided by John Hulstrom, with his helper Brad Rector. These two members of The Fresno Sierra Chapter organized this whole Tour and did a superb job!! The next day (Thursday) John and Brad had arranged a tour to The Moaning Caverns (which was a short drive from our Hotel). This was a deep whole in the ground with about 250 steps (one way) to the bottom. (Some folks chose not to take the adventurous hike).Thursday evening Brad and John had arranged an extravagant evening at the beautiful "Ironstone Vineyards" and event center. I think this was the highlight of our trip!! (Most of the Tour attendees dressed in "period style for this event!!
Back to Wednesday, the whole trip was topped off with a Wednesday afternoon talk by the famous "Model A You Tube Guy".......Paul Shinn......followed by a delicious Pizza/Wine feed...........and a final days breakfast back at the Old Historic "Murphy's Hotel on Thursday morning"!!Our trip home was uneventful (happily), but all of us arrived very tired and needed a rest from the fantastic time had by all.
RPM Nationals 2022
By: Jason Deisman
Sept. 24th 2022
Great day at RPM Nationals in Santa Margarita,Ca. Two of our club members were selected out of 100 possible cars to participate. Tim McMaster and Jay Deisman represented our club well. It was a beautiful day along California’s central coast with great racing. Those unfamiliar, RPM Nationals is a traditional two cars to the line drag race with flag girl and all. 6 classes race 4 cylinder and Flathead Fords in every configuration except blown alcohol. Held at the historic Santa Margarita ranch it makes just the right mix of open space and a beautiful venue for such an event. The Deisman’s 29 pickup ended up having some repairs needed to perform at its best. However, as usual Tim McMaster put on a show with his 1927 Flathead powered roadster “Ruby”. Tim has a great friendly rivalry with a 1932 Roadster owned by Rich Roberts. These guys lay down the rubber and make it exciting. It was a wonderful day that should be experienced by any vintage Ford enthusiast.
Club Repair Day
Saturday Sept 3rd 2022
Hello friends, just wanted to share a great time we had during the most recent seminar. In all actuality it was a “club repair day”. Those of you unaware our newest member Manuel Mendoza had an unfortunate breakdown in his very nice newly acquired coupe on the way home from Bockman’s ice cream social. With a locked differential it was inoperable. Club members Bill Bennett and Phil Kneeland seized (no puns intended) the opportunity to start up a new plan we have been discussing. Bill and I had proposed rebuilding key components for such circumstances. It just so happened that Bill had a fully rebuilt rear differential in exchange for the cost of replacement parts. This way the cars can be inoperable for the shortest length of time possible. This last Saturday we met at Brian and Sandy Blains shop for the transplant. Unfortunately, Bill Bennett was under the weather but still came down and supervised us weekend warriors. We got dirty and had a great time teasing each other. Manuel unfortunately got a learning experience in trusting sellers.His “ready to go” coupe had about 2 tablespoons of oil in rear differential and transmission combined. Fortunately, we were able to put it the new rear differential and caught the transmission before further problems. The entire process took about 4 hours and it was genuinely a fun time for everyone except for poor Bill. As we have not done such activities since I have been a club member, I hope this is just the beginning. A return to the wrench turning and sharing of knowledge by all members instead of relying only on our beloved club experts. The friendship and camaraderie are part of the reason we joined a club. Thank you again to all who participated or stopped by.
Jason-
Early Summer “Mystery Tour”
June 22nd, 2019
BY Phil Kneeland
Dave enjoying a Harley Davidson pinball machine at one of our stops
“Vic and Linda Groah in concert with Jim Pimental made possible a fantastic “Early
Summer Tour”. They had all of the preparations down to a tee and the whole unique
day came off fantastic. Several Car Clubs together toured two private collections
that had only been visited before by close friends of the collectors. We enjoyed the
day being entirely immersed in antiques and collectables that “blew our minds”.
Afterwards, we were directed to Alejandra’s Restaurant in Exeter for lunch.
Thanks to Vic, Linda and Jim for a beautiful
day.
”
Hume Lake / Sequoia Tour
June 15th, 2019
By Phil Kneeland
“ Larry and Donna Williams leads us on a super informative Tour, Saturday, June 15th, which took us back through history to the mid to late 1800’s. This history included Larry’s passion of the huge lumber operations that encompassed thousands of acres of prime Sierra Nevada Mountain land. These operations hired thousands of men to cut acres and acres of valuable forest lands. Thank you so much to Larry and Donna for the huge effort to prepare the way for this super Tour.”
Coalinga Museum Tour
The once again postponed Parkfield tour…
By: Dave and Karen Bockman
“ On Saturday, May 18, at 8:30 a.m., seven Model A’s gathered near the tennis courts at Plaza Park. This was a joint tour for the Happy Honkers of Porterville and the Charter Oak A’s and the attendees were Carson Blaydes, Larry and Dora Lee, Cruz and Rosie Huerta, Phil and Linda Kneeland, Louie and Ofelia Armendarez, Larry and Donna Williams, and tour leaders, Dave and Karen Bockman. In Lemoore we were joined by Brad Richtor and his friend Debbie, from the Sierra Chapter in Fresno.
The original tour was planned for Parkfield with lunch at the wonderful Parkfield Cafe. However, due to storms the night before and the threat of flash flooding on the Parkfield Grade Road, the tour had to be modified. The group traveled to Coalinga via Highway 198 were we visited the R. C. Baker Memorial Museum and the 1934 “Richfield gas station” on the same site. We were all able to take photographs of our Model A’s sitting in front of the Richfield gas station as if they were getting a fill up! The museum was filled with a tremendous variety of exhibits from fossilized Mastodon jaw bones and teeth and tusks, to an exhibit of the history of the town of Coalinga told in photographs, some dating from the late 1890’s. The extensive collections of period furniture, clothing, minerals and rocks, etc. were all gifts from current and former residents of the Coalinga area. There was a collection of photographs of the “Oil Pump Zoo” that used to be seen along Highway 198 as one drove into Coalinga. Each of the oil pumps along the way had been costumed and painted like animals and various cartoon characters. Sadly, the “Zoo” has fell into disrepair and only the zebra remains.
After our tour of the museum, we began our drive to Hanford and Superior Dairy for lunch, and of course, ice cream. The weather was a bit windy as we drove to Hanford, but otherwise, we enjoyed sunshine most of the tour. After lunch, we each headed home by different roads, having eaten a good lunch and a great amount of ice cream, at least some of us had ice cream! On the way home the storm clouds began to build in the West, so we got out of Dodge at the right time.
For all you Happy Honker Chicken Committee members, Phil tried to give away one member of his flock of chickens, however, there were no Chicken Award worthy events or breakdowns on this tour, much to Phil’s dismay. Phil remains in possession of Charter Oak’s Billy Buzzard and a plethora of chickens that were given to him at the last Happy Honker meeting as a result of several previous Chicken Award worthy offences. ”
David & Karen Bockman’s annual ICE CREAM SOCIAL
08-13-2022
By: PHIL KNEELAND
To all of you that were able to join us at Saturday's Bockman Ice Cream Celebration, we appreciate the effort that it took to brave the warm afternoon!! To all of you that were unable to make it......we missed you!! We had such a great time with the delicious ice cream, root beer floats and toppings, furnished by Dave and Karen (under the giant Walnut Tree!!). We had great cookies brought and donated by each attendee and had some wonderful "Car Games" created and directed by Dave Bockman.The first car game was won by Cruz Huerta with a prize of a "Quail Radiator Ornament", donated by my good friends, Ken and Molly Cooper, of Manteca, CA.!!!The other car game was won by Herb?? (don't remember his last name, sorry Herb) and he was also a winner of a "rear view mirror," donated by the same good friends, Ken and Molly Cooper, of Manteca, CA!!!!You probably noticed the change in the Title of this years "Ice Cream Celebration" from the past years Ice Cream Social.This was Dave Bockman's idea of "celebrating Karen's recovery"!! (That is my interpretation at least) The Bockman's have supported the Model A Community for at least 50 years. This has been non-stop support for our Clubs and the whole Model A Hobby!! Anytime we ask for their participation, they are the first ones to volunteer. It's been that way for the 50+ years.
Our Clubs cannot repay Karen and Dave for all that they mean to OUR GROUP!!!!!
