By By KATHIE HEMPEL / Niles Daily Star
BUCHANAN – The two young brothers spent hours identifying cars by year, make and model.
It was the early 1930s. You could do that then.
In the 1920s, their Dad had watched the cars passing his Minerva, Ohio, home, traveling between Canton and Pittsburgh, in much the same way. He told the boys he had determined 55 percent of the cars on the road were Henry Ford's Model T's.
"Now they don't change that much. Today, I was behind a 1960 Ford. It was different from the 1959 and from the 1961 models. I have a 2005 Buick LeSabre and it isn't really any different than the 2000, I traded in. They don't do the yearly facelifts anymore," Don Ryman, car enthusiast and County Commissioner, said.
Earlier in the day, Ryman drove his 1927 Ford Model T Coupe in the Buchanan Memorial Day Parade. He has been in all but two or three of the annual parades since 1967.
"This is my second Model T. My first was a Model T two door sedan: spelled T-u-d-o-r, as opposed to his 'Fordor'. That's the kind of thing Henry would do. I bought my first one in 1965," Ryman said.
The commissioner recalls always being somewhat fascinated with cars, ever since the days watching them go by his Fairhope, Ohio, home. He bought the coupe he drove in Monday's parade from a former Buchanan city manager, Daryl Tammen, in 1969.
"I've had one car or another in the parade for the past 40 years. A year or two we got rained out. One year a head gasket broke and I got water in the piston and I think I drove my little MG that year. I've also driven a 1947 Studebaker in the parade," he said.
However, for the past several years, Ryman has entertained crowds by donning his long, decades' old, tan coat and cap, cranked up the old Model T and hit the road to the delight of the crowds. Several times throughout the route, the car will 'stall' and he will exit the auto, give it a couple more turns of the crank and reliable as the day it rolled off the assembly line, off they go.
"I hope it doesn't irritate anyone. I like to entertain them. They always laugh and clap as it starts," Ryman said.
As much a history buff as he is a car enthusiast, Ryman tells of how this Model T is one of the last 200,000 built. The cars were introduced Sept. 31, 1908, and 15 million were produced over a 17-year period. "That record stood until it was finally broken by Volkswagen and it took them much longer. Henry made a few little changes each year. Getting a new car would become a bit of one-up-manship, and the neighbors would work to keep up with the Jones' I guess," Ryman said.
For Ryman it is just his way of sharing his love of the vintage cars he used to love to work on-especially the Model T. He remembers sitting on his mother's lap while riding in the family's Model T, peering over the dash to see its four-pointed radiator cap.
"I was born in 1928 and remember my Dad owning three different Model T's. Today, I told my 13-year-old grandson, Eddie, that when he is old enough to drive in a couple of years, I will teach him to drive the Model T. It's quite different," he said.
He emphasized the sturdiness of the old car by relating a story about a cousin's daughter.
"She has a scar on her face received when a motorcycle came up across the hood of their Model T and smashed the windshield. Her father just took off the dented hood, put it into the trunk and drove the car home," Ryman said. Ryman came to Buchanan in 1957 to work for Clark's Equipment, where he was senior legal council and assistant secretary. He was elected to take office with the Berrien County Commission in 1995. Ryman and wife Martha moved to different homes in Buchanan, every couple of years for a while, finally settling into their West Front street home the same year he began participating in the Memorial Day parade.