[Leica] Martin Howard and "Eric The Red" or "Longboat across America"

[TTAbrahams@aol.com]

 For those on the LUG who has wondered about the whereabouts of the LUG 
gadfly Martin Howard, I can inform you that he is finishing up a 3-week tour 
of the US. His trip started off with a flight to New Orleans and then on to 
San Diego and a hurried roadtrip up the California coast and on to Seattle. 
The reason for the speed was to arrive in Vancouver early enough to figure 
how to navigate his latest acquisition "Eric The Red" a.k.a. "The Big Red" or 
"The Longboat". Martin is new to car ownership and called upon me to help him 
and given the opportunity to lead a youth astray, I jumped at the chance. He 
has never owned a car before and I figured out he needed something that when 
he was asked "What was you first car?" would cause a bit of a stir. First 
rule governing "First Cars", they must be cheap, second rule they should 
allow you to sleep in them, and the third rule is that the sound-system 
should be good or at least weird enough. Eric The Red full-filled all these 
requirements, it was less than a new 50 Summicron for a M (this is my 
arbitrary guideline for cars), it has a back-seat big enough for a party of 
four and it has a Quadraphonic 8-track system with multiple speakers, some of 
which works! Martin is now cruising back to Columbus, Ohio in a 20 feet of 
1977 Lincoln Continental Town Car, metallic red and at least 4 cows gave up 
their hides for the acres of grey leather. Oh, it also came with a large 
selection of 8track tapes, ranging from Mantovani's String music to Elvis 
Golden Hits all the way to James Taylor, as well as some 1977 Disco Dance 
tapes!
 For the last 4 days we have been checking the car out, cleaning out several 
years of accumulated pine-needles (it was parked on a smallish island of the 
coast of BC, under some old growth pine trees) as well as fixing some of the 
mechanical problems afflicting 23 year old cars. It is a low-mileage car 
(113000 miles) as the Island it resided on is not that big, nor does it have 
that much of a road-system, it has it shares of minor dings (Exc+ condition), 
including a couple of dents on the hood and left hand fender where a 80ft 
pine tree landed and broke in half, during a storm. It did dent the chrome 
strip on the fender and put a quarter-sized dent in the hood. 
 Yesterday was spent cleaning the interior and outfitting the car for 2000 
miles of I-90/I-94 cruising, some tools, some food and he already had "On The 
Road" by Kerouac and a Rand McNally road map. Chris, a friend of ours gave 
him the RoadWarrior kit, a box with a mug, spoon, tea, a chocolate bar (in 
case of breakdown, eat the chocolate bar before attempting to fix anything), 
and other essentials. We gave some extra FP-4 and Pan-F as well as some bread 
and fruit. Of course he is carrying his trusty Shintaro painted black M2 with 
25/35/50 and 90  and he will soon figure out how to drive one-handed and 
shoot through the windshield, across a substantial expanse of hood.
 LUGgers along I-90 and I-94, for the next 4-days keep your eyes peeled for a 
metallic red  Lincoln driven by a person brandishing a black M2. Of course we 
all want a travel report once he is back in Ohio later this month.
Bon Voyage Martin!
Tom & Tuulikki and Barnack the Cat

>Subj:   [Leica] Where is Martin?
>Date:  8/4/00 1:52:10 PM Pacific Daylight Time
>From:  rpjohnson2@home.com (RP Johnson)
>Sender:    owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
>Reply-to:  leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
>To:    leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
>I knew that something was missing lately.  Martin has been suspiciously
>absent for a couple of weeks.  As a result, the "humor-content index" of the
>LUG has plummeted.
>Anybody know where he is?
>rp johnson