Image Attribution Michael Barera, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Howdy, folks. Glenn Blamstead here, still kickin’ despite what the cholesterol charts say. My doctor took one look at my bloodwork and said, “Glenn, you keep eating like a teenager and driving like a maniac, you’re gonna need a cardiologist on speed dial.”
I told him, “Doc, if the man upstairs wanted me worried about triglycerides, He wouldn’t have invented the Hemi.”
He didn’t laugh. Doctors never do. Probably because they drive Priuses.
Anyway, that’s the motto painted on the wall of my Sherman pole barn garage in faded red letters right above the tool chests:
I Drive Way Too Fast To Worry About Cholesterol.
It’s been there since 1989, the same year I dragged home the meanest, rustiest, most beautiful 1970 Plymouth ’Cuda 440 Six-Pack the Kanabec County area has ever seen.
The Day Eric Marohn From Mora Sold Me His Soul
It was late October, cold enough that the snot froze in your mustache but warm enough that the beer didn’t. I was up in Mora picking up a load of treated posts when I saw it sitting behind Eric Marohn’s place like a drunk prom queen who’d been stood up—faded black, primer gray fenders, and a vinyl top that looked like it had lost a fight with a badger.
Eric met me at the gate wearing Carhartts that could stand up on their own. “You still lookin’ for somethin’ stupid to do with your money, Blamstead?”
“Always,” I said.
He pointed at the car with his coffee cup. “Four-forty Six Pack, four-speed, Dana 60. Ran 12.70s back when gas was cheaper than milk. I ain’t got time for it no more. Heading to college. Need the money. Three grand and it’s yours.”
I didn’t even dicker. Just handed him thirty crisp hundred-dollar bills I’d been saving for something sensible—like taxes or a root canal—and we pushed that glorious rust bucket onto my trailer. Eight miles per gallon? Hell, on a good day it got eight miles per tank. But every one of those miles was worth it.
My Sherman Pole Barn Becomes a Sanctuary (and an ICU)
I built that 40×64 Sherman pole barn in ’87 with one purpose in mind: to have a place big enough to hide from my wife when I bought something stupid. Turns out it was perfect for open-heart surgery on Mopars too.
Ten-foot sidewalls. Fourteen-foot overhead doors. In-floor heat so your knuckles don’t seize up in January. I could back the trailer right in, drop the gate, and roll that ’Cuda off like it was coming home from war. Which, frankly, it was.
First winter I spent more time in that barn than I did in the house. Wife would bang on the man-door with a spatula and yell, “Glenn, supper’s getting cold and so am I!”
I’d holler back, “Just five more minutes, hon—I’m up to my elbows in 50-weight and happiness!”
She stopped asking after a while. Smart woman.
426 Cubic Inches of Pure Regret (and Joy)
Let me tell you about that engine.
When I pulled the plugs they looked like charcoal briquettes. The carburetors—three Holley two-barrels sitting on that factory aluminum manifold—were so gummed up you could’ve used ’em for door stops. The Six-Pack setup was frozen solid. I had to heat the throttle shafts with a rosebud torch just to get the butterflies to move. Nearly set the whole car on fire. Twice.
But when I finally got it running? Lord have mercy.
I fired it up one spring evening in 1991, rolled the doors open, and let that 390 horsepower snort and growl into the Minnesota dusk. Sounded like God clearing His throat after eating a box of thumbtacks. The whole barn shook. A flock of crows left the trees like they’d been shot out of a cannon. My dog Furg hid under the pickup for three days.
I took it out on the back roads that night—windows down, heater blasting because the defroster didn’t work, radio stuck on an AM station playing polkas. Hit 120 before I even got to the stop sign. Realized halfway through third gear that the speedometer only went to 120 and the needle was trying to bury itself in the dash.
That’s when I knew: I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.
The Summer of 8 Miles Per Gallon and Zero Regrets
That whole summer I never bought gas in town. Too embarrassing. I’d drive the 20 miles to Hinckley or Cambridge, fill up five jerry cans and the tank, and slink home like a man buying questionable magazines.
People would see me coming and just pull over. Not out of courtesy—out of self-preservation. That ’Cuda announced itself three divs away with a lope that sounded like an idling drag boat. Kids on bicycles would pedal faster. Old ladies crossed themselves.
One Sunday after church I decided to take the family for ice cream in it. Four of us crammed in there—me, the wife, and two kids who were still small enough to fit. We made it about six miles before the temperature gauge went full Chernobyl. Limped home on back roads with steam rolling out from under the hood like a locomotive.
Wife said, “Glenn, that car is trying to kill you.”
I said, “Honey, if dying feels that good, sign me up twice.”
The Barracuda Still Lives in the Sherman Barn
She’s still in there today, 34 years later. Paint’s a little more faded, interior smells like gasoline and old dreams, and the odometer quit at 38,472 miles sometime during the Clinton administration. But she runs. Boy does she run.
I fire her up every Father’s Day, let her warm up until the headers glow just a little, then take her out and scare the deer population half to death. Still gets 8 miles per gallon. Still worth every damn one.
And the barn? That beautiful red and white Sherman pole building with the cupolas and the porch and the big doors that open like the gates of Valhalla? Still standing straight and true. Never sagged, never leaked, never once complained about the parts explosions or the time I accidentally set the trash barrel on fire doing brake cleaner fireworks.
If you’re a man (or woman) who understands that life is too short for sensible cars and low-fat cheese, you need yourself a proper garage. A place where dreams don’t have to apologize for being loud and thirsty and a little dangerous.
You need a Sherman pole barn.
Because some of us were born to drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.
And we need a place to keep our bad decisions warm in the winter.
Give the boys at Sherman a call. Tell ’em Glenn sent you.
And if anyone asks why your new garage is 64 feet long with 16-foot doors and a 20-foot ceiling… just smile and say, “Because 8 miles per gallon tastes better when you’ve got room to work on it.”
Yours in high-octane heresy,
Glenn Blamstead
Professional Bad Influence & Pole Barn Evangelist
Somewhere north of Mora, still outrunning actuarial tables
