Thursday, December 3, 2009

David B. Treadway Comments Re: The Cash Cruiser

Richard, you remember Pat Walsh's Cash Cruiser spiel near-perfectly. Anything I could add would be hair-splitting, so here's a view from "inside."

Pat's Cruiser cut-ins always had the William Tell Overture (think "Lone Ranger" theme) playing in the background. I don't know whose idea it was, but I found it hilarious.

The Cash Cruiser was a huge green International Harvester vehicle. I can't remember if the designation was "TravelAll" or "Scout" (before the latter was re-introduced as a smaller rig), but it was an SUV decades before that concept appeared.

The phone system in the Cruiser was mounted on the transmission hump in the front floorboard. It had eight lighted pushbuttons, labeled A through H. In order to place a call, one had to be listening through the handset while punching through the buttons to find a channel that was not busy. Then, one had to use a rotary dial to call the station hotline!

I don't know how Pat did it all without crashing into other cars, but he did an amazing number of things that looked impossible to us mortals. The rest of us would generally do a Cash Cruiser run in pairs, one to drive and the other to work the phone.

Working for Pat Walsh was a wonderful experience after one got over being scared to death of him. There are hundreds of Walsh Stories, the great majority of them eloquently profane. I will search my memory banks to see if I've got one clean enough to post.

I know I say this too often, but it's especially true of Pat: We'll not see the likes of him again!

David B. Treadway
Doc Holiday VII

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