Here's an article from yesterday's Tulsa World. I didn't know about it until recently; it might be fun to go watch them dig it up!
Memories: Recalling events of 50 years ago can be fuzzy
KEN NEAL Senior Editor
01/28/2007
Tulsa World (Final Home Edition), Page G6 of Opinion
Everyone, it seems, remembers something about that old Plymouth sitting mothballed under the courthouse lawn, patiently awaiting its resurrection on June 15.
After a column asking for comment, a steady stream of readers e-mailed and telephoned their recollections of the burial of the car on June 15, 1957. No criticism intended, but most of our memories of that long ago day are pretty hazy.
We buried a car, we put a time capsule and "stuff" from 1957 in it. That much is definite, but we are certain of little beyond that.
That "we" represents Tulsa, not me personally. I was just out of college and probably slaving away at the Tulsa World. I don't remember if I guessed what the population of the city of Tulsa would be in 2007. So if I win the car it will be because of a long forgotten guess.
The amazing thing about Tulsa's buried car is not the interest nationally, even internationally. It is the flood of happy memories that the car triggers.
Invariably, a conversation starts with "I was there," and very quickly turns to memories of the times 50 years ago. Or "my daddy took me to the burial." That of course leads to memories of departed dads.
You have to be a, ahem, senior citizen to remember an event of 50 years ago, so we are dealing with impressions of people who were young at the time and clearly not concerned with details.
The burial of the car was a happy event. Maybe the memories are pleasant because old-timers like to remember the days of their youth when life was less complicated and Tulsa had yet to become a metropolitan area.
Pleasant as the memories are, we've yet to get a solid account of the "embalming" of the Plymouth. Was it adequately prepared for a 50-year sleep underground? Was the concrete vault sealed? How?
Richard Blissit of Tulsa and his brother, Ron, of Stillwater, are antique auto restoration experts. Their father owned the Tulsa Pierce-Arrow dealership until Pierce Arrow folded in 1938. The Blissits' father was sales manager for Forster Riggs, Inc., when the 1957 Plymouth was buried. Ron was working for Forster Riggs in the new car "make ready" and remembers the Plymouth but does not recall if it was given special treatment.
Some of the confusion about how the Plymouth wound up in the courthouse vault stems from the fact that the Parrish and Clark dealership was at 1001 S. Boston Ave. and Forster Riggs was but a few blocks away at 815 S. Main St.
There is some hope that all fluids were drained from the car and other steps taken to preserve it, but it was likely buried "as is" and wrapped in plastic.
The Blissits have offered to "de-pickle" the car and make it ready to run if it is in reasonably good condition.
Richard Blissit, best known in Tulsa as an interior designer, has restored many Pierce Arrows and Ron Blissit, designated a Master Technician by Chrysler Corp. in 1958, is, of course, very familiar with Plymouths of the 1950s. Ron once won a national championship with his Pierce Arrow. The guy who finished second? He's Jay Leno, reportedly a television personality.
The Blissits' love of antique autos has led them to offer to put the car in running condition. They say the worst thing that could happen is for amateurs to unwittingly slap a new battery in the car and try to start it without the proper preparation. The old car needs the engine, transmission and differential flushed, its carburetor cleaned and tuned, and its brakes replaced, at the least.
The Blissits believe the vehicle will be in good condition. Others argue that shifts of the vault and invading moisture might have reduced the old car to a rusting hulk.
If that's the case, then work done to restore the auto would obviously be performed on a contract basis.
Sharon King Davis, chairwoman of the ad hoc committee presiding over the exhumation, emphasizes that what happens to the Plymouth will be up to its new owner. That will be the person or his heirs who most accurately predicted Tulsa's June 1, 2007, population back in 1957.
"We can't agree to any procedure on the car because we don't own it. We are going to find the owner. The list of predictions will be published and the winner will be expected to come forward. If that person or the heirs don't claim the car, we will go to the next best prediction. If there's a tie, we will flip a coin. We're going to find an owner. It is not the intent of the Historical Society to own the car."
Nor do the Blissits have ambitions of ownership.
"I don't want to own a 1957 Plymouth," Ron Blissit said.
The brothers believe the "make ready" offer will cost them about $5,000.
Some of the memories of the burial justify the Blissits' belief that the car will be in good condition.
Kenneth Marshall of Jet, Okla., was working for a Tulsa machine shop and participated in the burial.
"I remember that men lined the top of the walls of the vault with a black sealer before the lid was placed," Marshall said.
That is a critical bit of information. If water has been kept out of the vault, the auto is probably in good condition. If water seeped in (the courthouse lawn has been watered for 50 years) the prospects for the Plymouth are not so good.
The memories abound (see comments below) but the questions remain.
We'll have to wait until June 15 when the Plymouth itself will provide the answers. As one old car organization put it, that's four months, 17 days and 15 hours away, more or less.
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I'm not stalking you by the way....
Hi Pozey!!!!!
