I recently received an AA unity chip for four months sober. In an episode of The DrakeCast with Elliott Adler, I spoke often about “the curse” Clyde has been in my life. Today I realize much of that curse had less to do with the car than with my own attachment to the chaos surrounding it.
For those of you who subscribe to the Drake Magazine, you’ll notice it’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about Clyde, the magazine’s 1974 Mercury Marquis that travels the country. This car invites mishaps, cops, and adoration from anyone who sees him. But where has he been, and what’s he been up to? Today on the podcast, we speak with writer John Agricola to check in on Clyde and hear about his latest adventures.
Memorial Weekend is typically a time to avoid fishing. But Clyde opens doors. And gates, with bass ponds behind them. I’m not a private-water-with-pellet-fed-trout guy, but access to an un-public largemouth lake in Tennessee? That’s another matter.
Clyde gets his groove back, in Arkansas Clyde is docked in the parking lot of Little Rock’s Ozark Angler, his big ass hanging beyond the lined allotment and his bigger-still nose hanging yards past the curb. He’s been baking in the 90-plus degrees for several hours. I yank once and then again on his heavy…
If you linger around a fly shop long enough on a slow day, you’ll eventually hear some crazy and creative fishing plans. My shop—Arbor Anglers in Golden, Colorado—is no exception, and on a recent afternoon in late October, the fishing plans got a little nuts. What started with: “We should find a big-ass shark-mount somewhere…
In late October of 2013, Tom Bie, editor of The Drake, sent me an email: “CLYDE IS PARKED on 2nd floor, row E, space 14, in the garage for American Airlines, right next to an emergency phone. He is gassed and ready to go, but keep in mind he is 40 years old, with almost…
Clyde arrived in the southernmost tip of the continental United States this November. His first few months in the Keys were spent on a lift in a local shop where a generous mechanic glued, zip-tied, and hammered parts back on him. Eventually, I ran into his caretakers at a party. Keys were exchanged and I…
God promised Noah that He’d never again destroy every living creature on earth by a flood, and God put rainbows in the sky as a sign of this promise. (Genesis 9, Chapter 10, verses 9-13). But God never said He wouldn’t have Mother Nature occasionally kick us in the crotch as a reminder of what…
Like Dirk Nowitzki, Clyde was stuck in Dallas. But what I thought might be little more than a quick rescue mission turned into two of the more interesting fishing days of my summer.
Episode #4 of The DrakeCast traces the beginning of an infamous car’s adventure from Wisconsin to Texas. We’re going to Ride with Clyde. Along the way we’ll meet a state trooper, a few unique motel owners, and hear some behind the scenes audio recorded on Clyde’s bench seat when no one was looking. We’ll also learn…
“ARE YOU SURE that car’s gonna make it?” the gas station employee asked, without knowing our destination. Clyde was the only one who knew the answer. Instinct and lack of mechanical competence told me to trust him.
Though separated by several hundred miles, the Ozark Mountains and Appalachia share a certain colloquial charm. Small wooden cabins with prison bars in the windows advertise cheap guns, rundown gas stations converted into liquor stores promise a sale on Sundays, and friendly folks serve barbecue on styrofoam plates. Additionally, each mountain chain sports an under-appreciated…
Last we left you, Clyde was crashing shoddy motel rooms, pounding Coors Light silos, and scarfing large Hawaiians from Pizza Hut—clearly reveling in Peach State culture—as he meandered through Georgia’s Blue Ridge mountains. Where’ll Clyde curb-check next? Here, the Southern Revival Tour rolls on.
Clyde may be of industrial-strength Detroit stock. But his love of nuclear northern winters is only lukewarm. Road salt gives him an itchy undercarriage rash. And all that ice fishing ain’t all that, unless it involves Great Lakes-size servings of Fireball. So having spent most of his winter vacay lurking in the Wisconsin Northwoods, it…
AFTER GETTING WORD that I’d be next in line for the continuing Ride with Clyde saga, my fishing and social life took on a strange, A-list vibe. Clyde is a rock-star rig, and I suddenly became a kind of social agent for this over-forty hunk of Detroit steel.
“I THINK THE BEST TIRE is the spare in the trunk,” says Pete, handing me the keys. The other four tires vary in brand and age but seem to be holding air. I drop onto the seat and close the sagging door with a little extra encouragement. Amy does the same on the passenger side.…
The flashing freeway sign reminded us that high winds had closed I-25 to light and/or high-profile vehicles. This wasn’t a problem for Clyde. Ford built him in 1974 weighing just under 5,000 pounds. Its big-block 460 engine alone weighs more than 700. We weren’t getting blown anywhere. Instead, we were comfortably cruising north riding low…
THOUGH HE’S LOGGED some incognito years on the shaded two-lane roads of the Pacific Northwest, and rolled many an empty highway undercover in Montana and Wyoming, I can tell that, in the city, Clyde commands the attention he deserves. The turnpikes of Colorado’s Front Range are crowded with blue-collar sorts who appreciate Detroit craftsmanship and…
“THIS IS A SWEET CAR,” said the friendly sheriff of Hardin, Montana (population 3,500-ish), who’d just pulled us over for a burnt-out headlight. After promising to replace the light (Fat chance!), he let us roll on with no questions asked. (Which was damn lucky on our part, because if we’d have had to find any…
Clyde should be dead by now. He was pronounced dead. More than once, in fact. In February 2012, a Salt Lake wrencher put a $1,200 tranny in him and said, “He might make it through March.” In November of that same year, driver Steven Hawley emailed: “Clyde’s 460 is shot. Best quote for a rebuild…
CLYDE HAS A FLAT. I can see it from the boat ramp of Montana’s Bitterroot River. The front of the old Merc is sloping toward the passenger side, and while I’m happy to discover that there’s a spare in the trunk, I’m unhappy to discover that the jack is missing its handle. I’m unhappy again…
Photos and words by Lucas Young There’s a fine line in winter steelheading between bliss and torment. If there was no hope for the first, there’d be little incentive to endure the latter. Riding in Clyde is a bit like that. In summer, he’s warm and smooth and stylish—blissful, even. But in February, with the…
Photos by Lucas Young THE LIGHT FADED and the air went still, perfectly matching the low, slack tide of the bay. Several minutes later, leaping coho, some far away, others eerily close, broke the calm. I watched my line slice through the water as I stripped, then suddenly a small wake formed where I imagined…
CLYDE WAS RIGHT where Viking had left him the night before, backed into a salmonberry thicket, booze and beer resting on his hood, a lone fly box open to the morning dew. I remembered then, vaguely, showing off some new patterns by headlamp after our arrival the night before. If the fly box was mine,…
IN 1972 WALT “CLYDE” FRAZIER was holding down the New York Knicks’ backcourt with Earl “the Pearl” Monroe, and my dad came home one day to our suburban Connecticut home at the wheel of a shiny white Mercury Montego MX Brougham. Though it was classified a mid-size, the Montego, with its hood extending into next…
Since Clyde spews more fumes than the collective exhale of a Dead concert audience, an upcoming emissions inspection had him sweating some serious anti-freeze. No more. The issue has been resolved thanks to scoring these sweet 5-year collector plates from DMV.
The Sacramento There’s a special kind of summertime heat reserved for the valleys of California. Even up north, triple digits are common in the Sacramento Valley, which is where I found Clyde parked in Ryan Peterson’s driveway, its black exterior soaking up every ray in Redding. With no AC and an afternoon departure, my first…