Rural Routes: Semi-retired, Richard Baker's pet projects include antique autos

Editor’s Note: Rural Routes is an ongoing photo feature series about the lives of everyday people in Southeast Missouri. It is scheduled to appear on Mondays in the Southeast Missourian.

SCOPUS, Mo. — Sunlight slatted through the barn wall across Richard Baker’s workbench as he cut a new seat bracket for a truck he’d rather not have been working on.

Even though, at 68, Baker no longer raises anything more demanding than hay on his Scopus farmland, he said the driver’s seat’s always the first to go.

“A farm vehicle, you’re in and out all the time, so the left seat’s just junked,” he said, eyeballing the bracket against the upturned transplant seat. “And I’m tired of sitting on metal, so it’s time to do something about it.”

Having learned metalworking in the Army during the Vietnam War, Baker would drill out the bracket soon enough, but it was still a distraction; his real focus, he said, was on the disassembled mower on the adjacent bench. Or, on second thought, the mower was itself keeping his attention from the long, bare chassis at the back of the barn he meant to build into a rollback truck. Just to see whether he could.

One of Baker's favorites is a 1937 Ford sedan with suicide doors, the window of which is seen here. "I'm gonna put a V-8 Chevrolet motor in it," he said. "Automatic transmission."TYLER GRAEF

“Which, I’m good friends with Chad Hulvey in town and he does all my work reasonable,” Baker promptly added. “But I thought, ‘Well, I’m just gonna make one myself.’”

The shrug he offered as he admitted his tendency toward self-distraction was mild and chipper, as though he’d found himself pleasantly surprised with the pace of semi-retired life.

“I’ve got like a million, three-hundred-something-thousand miles driving a truck, and I run a dozer and a truck for four [years] over here, but then I got sick with the cancer,” he said with that same breezy lilt. “I do what I can now; usually take a few hours off for lunch. Today’s been a pretty good day ­—— I haven’t felt so bad today.”

“I’m just happy to still be here,” he said. “Doctor told me four, five years after the surgery, but September the 19th was 10 years. So I’m doing good. No complaints.”

So when a project hits a wall, it’s not the end of the world. And when all of them hit a wall, Baker works on the one project that’s pure pleasure: his collection of antique trucks.

"I'm gonna get it dug out and wash it and put a tire on the front bumper and the back bumper where I can put it in gear and bump it with a tractor in opposite directions," he said. "A lot of times that will break a motor loose. 'Course, the trouble with mine is it's sitting on gravel with two flat tires."TYLER GRAEF

A ’49 Chevy pickup. A ’66 for good measure. A ’37 Ford on an S10 chassis with a 454 under the hood. Baker has half a dozen classic rides in their own separate barn across the way.

His favorite’s the ’37 Ford, which he said is “so stinkin’ fast it’s dangerous.”

Of course not all of them run, but Baker said he’s working on it. The ’37 Ford sedan with suicide doors, for example, has a stuck engine.

“Acetone and automatic transmission fluid is supposed to be the best thing to get something unstuck with and I’ve tried that,” he said, raising the dusty hood to peek inside. “Poured that right in there and it’s never worked.”

He said the next step is to knock it free with a tractor.

“I’m gonna get it dug out and wash it and put a tire on the front bumper and the back bumper where I can put it in gear and bump it with a tractor in opposite directions,” he said. “A lot of times that will break a motor loose.”

But that might take some doing, he said.

“’Course, the trouble with mine is it’s sitting on gravel with two flat tires,” he said. “I’ve just always loved this stuff. Never could really afford it. Not that I can afford it now.”

With any luck, he explained, his collection will help put his youngest grandkids through college. But before then, he’s gonna unstick that sedan engine, swap it out and drive it to the annual antique car show in Piedmont, Missouri.

“I’m gonna put a V-8 Chevrolet motor in it,” he said. “Automatic transmission.”

At least that’s the plan. He chuckled at the thought before heading back to the other barn to finish that bracket.