“If the world was made up of only people who drove Fords and Chevys it would be a pretty boring place.”  That’s what Huck Delmont used to say anytime someone made a comment about him driving a Studebaker.  No one could deny that Huck’s ’62 Lark wasn’t a looker.  The Poly Brown Metallic convertible was finer than frog hair split with a broad axe.  It was just so uncommon to see such a thing on the streets of Fort Stockton.

When he wasn’t working at Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern refinishing the liturgical furnishings or keeping the old Ford Super Deluxe woody wagon maintained, Huck liked to work on the Lark in the shop he built out back of the bungalow he shared with his wife, Bertie. He’d overhauled the brake lines, master cylinder and shoes. It was during the ice storm that hit Texas a few years back, the one that caused Ted Cruz to fear it was the end of the world and flee with his family to Cancun for the Rapture, that Huck had the time on his hands to turn the drums. Even longer back than that, Huck refitted the dash of the Studebaker with oak left over from re-veneering the lectern. Folks speculated the miracle under the hood was some kind of a “loaves and fishes” situation, but it was really just a matter of Huck finding a 289 V8 replacement engine out at Earl’s Salvage Yard and Formalwear, rebuilding it in his shop, and installing it himself. That was back in ’97, when Ted was still Solicitor General for Texas, and defending a 16 year prison sentence for Michael Wayne Haley who’d shoplifted a calculator. How time flies.

Bertie has put up with Huck’s seemingly never ending obsession with getting the ’62 Stude as perfect as possible.  Folks in Fort Stockton all say she’s sweeter than stolen honey, though her teeth do seem to rattle a bit when she talks.  Huck paints a little different picture when it’s just him and the Boys having coffee over at the Grounds for Divorce.  “It was different in the beginning,” he’d say.  “I took to Bertie like a hog to persimmons.  But things change.  We took out insurance on each other.  Now it’s just a waiting game.”  

Chad, from over at the Piggly Wiggly, is always looking for ways to keeping the spark alive with Prudence from Produce, now that they’ve got a couple curtain climbers, two car payments, and a mortgage on a McMansion out in Morningwood Estates.  “How do you make it last, Huck?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you our secret to making the marriage last,” Huck explained.  Everyone drew in close to hear the pearls of wisdom he offered.  Even Lucinda put the coffee pot down and pulled up a chair.  “Two times a week, we go out to dinner.  Drink some fine wine.  Eat some good food.  Enjoy some time away from the house and all the pressures of life that go with it.”  We all nodded our heads in agreement.  “She goes on Tuesdays, I go on Fridays.”

Chad wasn’t sure exactly what to make of that, but the rest of us just smiled. Huck shared with me something much more substantive a while back that explained not only his long marriage, but how he’s been able to finance the extensive upgrades to the Studebaker on a maintenance man’s wages, including the conversion to the four-on-the-floor manual transmission, .

Back in 1991, when he’d only had it a year or two, he got up early one Saturday morning, put the top down on the little Lark, got a coffee to go at the drive thru window over at the Dairy Twin, and headed east on Highway 10. “I let the high pitched song of the original 170 cubic inch engine and the wind blowing through my comb-over take me to a different place,” he said. That different place was Sheffield, where he stopped to fill up and get lunch at the Burger Barn. “After a Barn Burger and Curly Fries, I was heading back to the Studebaker when I walked right past the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop,” he said.

Always on the lookout for a bargain, Huck noticed an ugly painting in the front window of the store.  The tag hanging from it said $4, and that’s exactly what he had left in his wallet, so it was a done deal.  Huck had no interest in the painting, but thought the frame might be able to be repurposed into something for the Studebaker, much like the veneers from the alter.

The painting laid in the bottom of the trunk for weeks before he finally remembered it, took it out of the car, and set it on the workbench in his shop. It laid there, where it accumulated a thick layer of dust, until he had to move it to the floor so he could repair the device Bertie kept in the drawer of her nightstand. It seemed the batteries would no longer hold a charge for more than an hour. Finishing the repair, Bertie grabbed the device from Huck and headed into the house to catch a rerun of Magnum PI, locking the back door behind her. With time on his hands, Huck put the picture back on the workbench, turned it upside down, and began prying the nailheads up that held in the painting, then gently removed it.

This is where the story gets interesting.

Taped to the back of the painting was an old envelope.  Inside the envelope was a piece of parchment folded twice.  It looked like a replica of the Declaration of Independence.  Huck chuckled to himself at how authentic it looked and then put it back in the envelope and tossed it into the drawer of the workbench where he kept the screwdrivers and old Playboy magazines.  

Several weeks later he and Sister Thelma were having lunch in the kitchenette behind the confessional of Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern when he mentioned finding the old document. “Bring it to work,” she said. “I’d love to see it.”

Pulling the Lark into the shop that night, Huck grabbed the envelope from the drawer, admired Miss July of 1988 for a few minutes, and tossed the envelope into the glove box of the Studebaker.  The next day at lunch, Sister Thelma almost dropped her egg salad sandwich on the document when she saw it.  “I know a guy,” she exclaimed.  “His name is David Redden.  He knows a lot about historical documents.  Your need to call him.  I think this might be worth something!”

Turns out the document was more rare than Huck’s Studebaker.  It was 1 of 25 printed by John Dunlap, the official printer of the Continental Congress, on July 4, 1776, the same day as the signing.

Sister Thelma was sworn to silence. The document was sold at Sotheby’s for $2,200,000. Huck never told Bertie, but gifted her a new device and a boxed collector’s set of the entire series of Magnum PI on VHS tapes for their anniversary. Sister Thelma was able to set up a new scholarship called Independence from Want for the underprivileged migrant youth of Fort Stockton. A special scholarship for those suffering from acute mental disorders but still wanting to serve their community called the Cruz Award was also created, but so far has never actually been awarded. As for Huck himself, he was able to finally afford that Poly Gold Metallic respray and new convertible top for the Lark.

When he shared the whole story with me over at the Lucky Lady after he finished dinner by himself one Friday night, he completed the tale by explaining that the very same document sold again in 2001 for $7,700,000, and increase of over five million dollars. Apparently the guy who bought it in 2001 knew how to get egg salad off parchment without destroying the ink.

“Any regrets?” I asked him. 

“Naw,” he replied.  “I’ve got all I need.  The Studebaker couldn’t be any nicer.”  It was quiet for a moment.  “Although, Bertie could use a new VCR.”