just had to share this

[DetroitDan]

Out in the woods at my uncles farm there is a little junkyard, everything they ever owned ends up there. Since I was a kid I have been eyeballing an old orange stepside, wishing I could restore it. I could have had it for free, but it was just too far gone to restore, someone appropriated the doors, the front fenders and headlight and grille assembly, so its been open to the weather for many years, and this is New Hampshire so we get some snow and cold. They also cut off part of the rockers with a sawzall, so now theres no rockers and much of the floor is gone. The cab is pretty far gone, the hood would be perfect except that one corner is smashed hard. Bed is rotted away, one fender is probably saveable, other one disappeared. Tailgate is mint. Frame and driveline is still good, basically only thing above the frame worth saving is the tailgate, and front and rear window glass. So anyway, year after year I walk past it going hunting, and it always made me a little sad, but I knew it was beyond my abilities to repair.
The other day my 18 y/o cousin got ambitious and decided he wanted to do something with it. He dragged it out of the woods, towed it back to his shop and we pushed it inside. Here's where it gets interesting. Oil looks brand new and sparkplugs look clean. We cleaned the points up a bit with an emery board, switched the fuel line at the pump to one going into a gas can, and put in a good battery. No key so we had to jump the ignition switch. Guess what happened next?
Not only did we get this thing to run after only ten minutes of fooling with it, it runs beautiful!! Purrs like a kitten, no smoke and sounds strong as the day it was made. This truck, which near as we can tell with so much missing, is a 62 or 63 Chevy C-10. It's a 6 cylinder 3 on the tree, even the clutch feels great. Did a little research and found out the guy stopped driving it because he said a bronze bushing went on the distributor which caused it to be loose (seems ok at the moment) After it sat a couple years he got sick of looking at it and gave it to another cousin who drove it into the woods and left it, near as he can remember it was in the early 80s. So this thing sat outside for nearly 30 years, and in ten minutes it was running like a top! Simply amazing.
Don't know what we're going to do with it yet. I think it needs a new cab and all sheetmetal, my cousin thinks he can weld new rockers and floors in it. Ah, the ambition of youth.
I just thought that if there was anyone who could appreciate this story, it would be you guys.