CHARLIE & LORI WEBER

1965 FORD FALCON BUS

In the fall of 1964 the Mt. Diablo Unified School District ordered several Ford Falcon buses for the 1964-65 school year.  When they arrived it was discovered that they only had 10-gallon gas tanks, which was not large enough to use a whole day without refueling.  So- to get rid of them quickly- they were offered for sale to the public at half price. 

My grandmother, Gladys Pinson, of Concord, Ca. who was a first grade teacher for the district at the time, received advanced notice of the sale, and informed my grandfather, Albert Pinson.  He promptly bought one and brought it home for the grand total of $1240.00 plus tax & license.  Not a bad deal for the times…

I, being 12 years old at the time, thought it was the ugliest thing I had ever seen, and there was no way I would be seen riding around in a ‘special’ bus.

Needless to say- I got over that (I had no choice in the matter) and now at the age of 51, I look back at all the memories of us 12 grandchildren being driven all over this state by my grandfather, I can barely keep a straight face.

Albert, a radio technician at the Concord Navel Weapons Station in Concord, was a meticulous man.  His tools, his autos, and his shop were all models of arrangement and cleanliness.  He took auto maintenance to new heights- I remember him removing the end of the speedometer cable from the dash, and pouring graphite into it to keep it from ‘humming’ as he put it.  As they say ‘the proof is in the pudding’.  For 25 years he drove THE BUS, as it became known in the family, without it ever needing major work.

At the age of 77- when he knew he would never drive again- (1980) he called my aunt, who was living in Washington state, and told her to ‘come get this thing, so I don’t have to listen to the boys argue over who gets it’.

There it sat, in the lovely town of Tenino, Washington- doing monthly runs to the transfer station with my aunt’s trash- until May of this year.  In May- my aunt (Mary Walls) put her two cans in the back, climbed into the driver’s seat, and found to her dismay- that it would not start.  So off to the shop it went.  When it came home, it had all new electrical: starter, alternator, regulator, battery, cables, and a large repair bill.

Realizing that it was getting too hard to climb into, and needing to recoup the repair costs, she mentioned in an email that she was going to have to sell it.  I causally mentioned that it would be fun to own and drive- for nostalgic reasons-and, to make a long story a little shorter, when I went up for her birthday in August, I ended up driving it home.

As of this date the odometer reads 131,236 miles.  She has never been overhauled, and does not smoke.

See you all at the runs!