Google Image of Houston Art Car Parade I spent a number of years working in adaptive behavior centers in Houston. I guess you could translate that a number of ways depending on your state. In Texas that refers to a school that teaches kids that are emotionally disturbed. In our case it also included Autistic students and the students were all bussed to us. Many of these kids were pretty intelligent but they had fallen behind thanks to their behavior. I realized very early on that an interesting curriculum will generally make behavior management much easier.
Google Image from Houston Art Car Parade Houston has an art car parade named the Orange Show. Seems the person who came up with the idea really liked oranges. What does every young boy like (and mostly, they were boys)? You got it. Cars, guns,or sports. I am not a coach and guns were out of the question. I have no personal knowledge of any of these cars. They are all google images and this is just an attempt to show the depth of the field.
Google Image from the Houston Art Car parade. I never for a moment thought about doing anything so bizarre. Way past my skill level and I also would have had nothing to commute in.
Not a google image. One of the few I managed to salvage from my pre-digital life. I did have this and I had a bunch of kids who wanted to do something. The city had a ball club, the Houston Rockets. They had just won a couple championships and we got the idea that we could focus on the kids, teach them how to do something constructive, and have some fun. When my school figured out that I had some experience in the trades I wound up teaching science and technology. From there we opened a vocational class. Just so you won’t think this was all fun and games we had a curriculum that taught practical aspects of auto mechanics as well.
We elongated the bed with a wooden skeleton and made a little hoop. To keep the kids from falling out, it was all enclosed in poultry netting. We painted rockets jerseys with everyone’s name and number. At the parade start we zip tied plywood basketball discs to the wheels.
We elongated the bed with a wooden skeleton and made a little hoop. To keep the kids from falling out, it was all enclosed in poultry netting. We painted rockets jerseys with everyone’s name and number. At the parade start we zip tied plywood basketball discs to the wheels.
I have no good pictures. Perhaps some are hidden away somewhere but they are well hidden. The best I can do is this one which was after the parade.
You can see a Rockets logo on the passenger door and the teeth that the kids all voted to make. I was told by one of the administrators that those teeth were unsettling when they came up behind you in traffic. I figure some folks are just easily frightened.
I previously wrote about this truck and a couple other Nissan/Datsun trucks I owned. Rather than repeat, you can find it here.
http://www.grangerlandrfd.com/my-love-affair-with-nissan/my-love-affair-with-nissan
You can see a Rockets logo on the passenger door and the teeth that the kids all voted to make. I was told by one of the administrators that those teeth were unsettling when they came up behind you in traffic. I figure some folks are just easily frightened.
I previously wrote about this truck and a couple other Nissan/Datsun trucks I owned. Rather than repeat, you can find it here.
http://www.grangerlandrfd.com/my-love-affair-with-nissan/my-love-affair-with-nissan
Google Image of 77 Impala Wagon By the next year I had found a car that really did just about everything I needed. This is a google image but it is the spitting image of my car. It had a 350/350 drivetrain and I wound up going through it pretty thoroughly. The lady I bought it from was afraid it was going to die. When I checked it she had been running it about three quarts low on both engine oil and transmission fluid. Ran lots better afterwards. I also had a 16 foot tandem trailer. That was all we needed for a much bigger float with more thoughts about safety for the second year.
The rockets had stopped being champions but they were a pretty good team and the kids were still enthusiastic.
The rockets had stopped being champions but they were a pretty good team and the kids were still enthusiastic.
If you think this paint job is ugly I’ll have to agree. Note over the back window “Yes, this is an art car”. You can see the framework for the basketball court in the trailer and it was a pretty big improvement over the Datsun. As you can imaging after seeing the real art cars at the top, our cars won nothing either year. However, in the case of some of the kids, these were the first projects they had ever seen through to completion. The dots on the faces are to protect the (not so) innocent. However, I can assure you that they no longer look like this. If I remember correctly, this is from 1997 or 1998.
When this was over I took some paint remover, and spatula, and a few cans of maroon rattle cans and made the car respectable again. It paid it’s own way and died a couple years later hauling that 16 foot trailer full of deck blocks and lumber to school. I suppose to be truthful both our art cars died from being ugly. I got rid of them and tried to be respectable again. A Volvo, a Saab, and a wrecked Mazda 626 later I was well aware that I had erred. Bought a new 2000 Saturn and quit driving junkers (for a while). The Saturn would pull a trailer but just barely.
When this was over I took some paint remover, and spatula, and a few cans of maroon rattle cans and made the car respectable again. It paid it’s own way and died a couple years later hauling that 16 foot trailer full of deck blocks and lumber to school. I suppose to be truthful both our art cars died from being ugly. I got rid of them and tried to be respectable again. A Volvo, a Saab, and a wrecked Mazda 626 later I was well aware that I had erred. Bought a new 2000 Saturn and quit driving junkers (for a while). The Saturn would pull a trailer but just barely.
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