It\u2019s early Friday evening in the Mendenhall Valley and Doug Harris stands next to his 1958 Chevrolet Delray Sedan Delivery, parked in front of the Napa Auto Parts store. He, his wife Arlea and son Mason have arrived early for a \u201cDipstick\u201d gathering (affectionate name for the local car club he belongs to) and he\u2019s engaged in casual conversation with a dozen or so of the \u201cauto-addicts\u201d surrounding his black-with-red-flames showpiece.<\/p>\n
Delray Deliveries are rare; only 4,700 left the Chevrolet assembly line. The one owned by Harris is stunning. The car proves a great conversation starter for the man who works as Chief Integrated Services Officer at the Juneau Alliance for Mental Health Inc. He never tires of describing the details of the Delivery, its paint job and engine specs. Even better is the backstory of how he came to be its proud owner, a classic boy-gets-car, boy-loses-car, the-two-are-reunited-decades-later story.<\/p>\n
Decades past <\/strong><\/p>\n The tale begins when Harris\u2019 grandfather, Norman Harris, decided to homestead near Powell, Wyoming, in the mid-1930s. He would eventually move his family into town after WWII to start a carpentry business. Needing a new work vehicle, he purchased the Chevrolet Delray Sedan Delivery in 1959.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 58 Delivery was ideal for him,\u201d Harris said. \u201cHe used it to carry tools and haul wood.\u201d<\/p>\n As a boy growing up in Powell, Harris remembers seeing his grandfather often, Sundays when the extended family gathered for dinner, or during one of the many times he mowed his grandfather\u2019s lawn. He recalls clearly the two of them chatting often about family history and their mutual love for books.<\/p>\n \u201cHe had the Delivery up until he signed it over to me just a few months before he passed away in 1986,\u201d Harris said. \u201cHe knew I loved the vehicle and had dreams for it.\u201d<\/p>\n It was the summer before his senior year in high school and Harris kept the car for only a short time, eventually giving in to his parents\u2019 desire that he sell it and use the money for other purposes including his education. Harris admits that at the time, the Delivery needed work and he was in no financial position to have it restored.<\/p>\n Harris knew of a local man who lived near his grandfather\u2019s house, who was said to have a passion for restoring cars, so fulfilling his parents\u2019 wishes, a price was agreed upon and the car sold. He believed it was going to a good home, but cashing out his grandfather\u2019s gift left Harris uneasy. He had a bad case of seller\u2019s remorse.<\/p>\n \u201cI almost instantly regretted the decision to get rid of it,\u201d Harris said. \u201cIt took about a year for me to build up the courage to go back to the guy I sold it to, to tell him that if he ever wanted to sell it, I wanted it back.\u201d<\/p>\n But Harris was in for a shock. His buyer no longer had the car. It had been sold yet again, this time to a buyer in Casper, Wyoming, about five hours south of Powell. At the time, it felt to Harris like the end of the story.<\/p>\n \u201cI had thought that he loved the car like I did, that he had been eyeing it himself,\u201d Harris said. \u201cIt hit me pretty hard that he had turned it around in a fairly short time.\u201d<\/p>\n Fast forward: Five years ago, through the magic of social media, Harris reconnected with a friend that he had gone to college with, who\u2019d grown up in Casper and eventually returned there. Harris remembered his grandfather\u2019s Chevy.<\/p>\n \u201cI told him \u2018Dude, you\u2019re back in Casper? That\u2019s where the car I got from my grandfather ended up. If you ever see something that looks like it, let me know.\u201d<\/p>\n On a Sunday afternoon in April 2016, Harris was sitting alone in his office, \u201cdoing paperwork,\u201d when he received a text from Larry, his friend in Casper. It seemed, the Delivery may have been found and was possibly for sale. Harris immediately contacted the owner.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I asked him to tell me the history of the car, he said that he had gotten it from his dad, who had gotten it from a nephew who had bought it from a guy in the Powell area about 30 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n Harris was floored, becoming in his own words, \u201cquite emotional.\u201d He called his wife to give her the news: The Delivery was in excellent condition and for sale. A deal was struck, a bank loan secured, but it was months before Harris and family were able to take the trip south to pick up the vehicle. In July, Harris was back behind the wheel, family road-tripping to Seattle for the barge ride to Juneau. Harris gets \u201cgoosebumps\u201d when describing what it was like to see the car again after more than two decades.<\/p>\n \u201cI nearly broke down\u201d he said. \u201cThe way the sun was shining on it, pictures can\u2019t do it justice. I was ecstatic to say the least.\u201d<\/p>\n To personalize the car, Harris has had the Delivery\u2019s side panels airbrushed with images expertly rendered by artist Carl Avery, whose work he describes as \u201cworld class.\u201d Freemasonry is an important part of Harris\u2019 life and the symbols depicted are an \u201chomage to the fraternal organization.\u201d<\/p>\n Happy endings <\/strong><\/p>\n At The Dipsticks annual car show in early May, Harris\u2019 Chevy received both the Sponsorship Award and the People\u2019s Choice Award for Best Car in Show.<\/p>\n What would his grandfather think of his being reunited with the Delivery?<\/p>\n \u201cWell, granddad was pretty frugal,\u201d Harris laughed. \u201cI would never tell him how much I paid for it and the mural. But I see it as an investment too. It\u2019s going to be 60 years old next year.\u201d<\/p>\n Second chances can be a beautiful thing. Few of us ever get the opportunity to rewrite a story more than 20 years old.<\/p>\n \u201cI really only have had one true regret in my life and that was getting rid of the car,\u201d Harris said. \u201cIt will stay in the family, unquestionably.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s early Friday evening in the Mendenhall Valley and Doug Harris stands next to his 1958 Chevrolet Delray Sedan Delivery, parked in front of the Napa Auto Parts store. He, his wife Arlea and son Mason have arrived early for a \u201cDipstick\u201d gathering (affectionate name for the local car club he belongs to) and he\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":18529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-18528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18528"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}