My Dad Shelman Anglin was a 3 war veteran. WW2, Korea, Vietnam. He was awarded two purple hearts, 3 bronze stars, air medals, and many other medals and accommodations throughout his military career. He also taught ROTC at Santa Barbara High School and UC Santa Barbara.
Dad enjoyed working on and restoring old cars. He was partial to 1965 Mustangs. He had several of them when I was growing up. I always wanted a 1965 Mustang GT Fastback. In the early 90s while working at Southern Cal Edison in Santa Barbara, I spotted this Mustang in a driveway where it had been sitting for quite a few years. I made many attempts to catch the owner at home. And after the better part of a year, I caught him at home one day. I told him I would love to buy that car to fix up and eventually pass on to my son (who was a year old at the time and is now 26). I wrote my first name and number on a post-it and handed it to the guy. Four years later after leaving Edison and starting a new job, I received a call from this man. He said he kept that post-it on his fridge all these years and when he decided to part with the Mustang he wanted it to go to me. I asked him why he chose me and kept my number all these years. He said, “You were sincere when you said you wanted to fix it up and keep it in the family, and you come from a Mustang family. I guess it was just meant to be”. He said he would hold it for me for one week. I did not have the money at the time to purchase the car, since I just started a new job and now have two young kids. I told my Dad the story and I hated to see the car go to someone else. My Dad went over to the house and bought the Mustang without telling me until the end of the week. He said he would fix the car up since I could not afford it at the time and one day it would be mine. Over the next 20 years, my Dad enjoyed driving that car into town nearly every day. When Dad passed away in 2012, the Mustang became mine. In talking with Kevin Keep from Rebuilding Generations, we decided that rebuilding the Mustang in honor of my Dad would be a great tribute to him and would fall directly in line with Rebuilding Generations’ theme of “the old with the new”. And so, Project Sarge began.