I had planned on bringing 10 Steel Tank Pentons to the Pentonville VMD gathering, enough to cover a decade of John Penton's 100 years. The opportunity then arose to haul the workbench from the Penton R & D building, along with Dane Leimbach's SPECIAL TOOLS tool box, John Penton's brother Ted's machinist tool chest, the R & D tool box, some of Dane and Teddy Leimbach's riding gear, and numerous other assorted items that I had stored in my building and display them in the Pentonville VMD display, and be able to then hand them off to Ray Mungenast for his Museum, so a few Steel Tankers stayed home. Ray is working on a PENTON ROOM in his museum, a very appropriate home for these items. President Rick and I are working on plans to hold a POG meeting at Ray's Museum at some point, so stay tuned.
The Steel Tankers in the photo were ready to make the trip to Pentonville VMD with a few more to be rolled out of storage, before I put some of them back in the storage room, I decided to take their picture and share it with you folks. The serial numbers range from V-015 to just over V-6200, with both of those machines, V-015 and V-62xx, being very low time, correct machines. It is amazing the many improvements that occurred to the Steel Tankers over that time period. I may bring those two machines to the upcoming Amherst, Ohio gathering.
What I didn't realize when I took the pictures was that my dad's collection would stand out so well in the photos, or at least a small part of his collection. My dad was a noted plantsman and he collected plants, mostly what would be considered rare and dwarf conifers and unusual trees of all sorts. Our family business consisted of a garden center and a small design / build landscaping service whose clientele were mostly high end residential projects, that was my end of the business. No mowing or anything like that, lots of setting large boulders with the machinery and planting those crazy dwarf and weeping conifers along with many interesting trees and shrubs. That was and still is to some extent my life's work.
Anyhow, our family business was really taking off in the early 70's and that is why I made the decision to step away from the ISDT events after 1974. A decision that I look back upon as being the absolute correct one to have made. Today, I still maintain the plantings of one of my projects and work at keeping my dad's plant collection properly maintained, a job that will NEVER be finished until I am !
When John Penton had sold off his businesses, he told me that he could keep his property at his home maintained in a few hours and that he didn't want to be preoccupied with " solving the problems of the world." So what did John do, he bought a property that was a potato farm decades ago and had grown up in small trees and such over the years. John would load up his numerous chain saws and tools and head to that property numerous days per week and worked at clearing it. He had a bulldozer and his backhoe there as well and in due time it was looking like a park, as a matter of fact there were some rides held there over the years and John would dump wood on the bonfire with his front end loader, possibly some of you were there.
Surely some folks thought John was nuts for working away at that farm, but John loved it and was very proud of his accomplishment. Once again, John Penton was a role model and as I mow and work away at our 12 1/2 acer property including my dad's plant collection, I think of him often. Once again, THANK YOU VERY MUCH JOHN PENTON.
PS I came across some original Hi-Point enduro arrows and some Penton dealer inventory cards in a recent acquisition and will have them offered up shortly on the Penton Motorcycles-Buy and Sell Facebook page, just in case any of you might be interested.
I'll have to make a trip out to the Museum and check out the progress with Ray. It's about an hour's drive for me and I haven't been there for a while. They always change things up now and then, like a good museum does. I'll be watching for updates, and especially if you think there may be a POG meeting there!!
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee