mondays with mabel on tuesday

Here it is, more mabelly goodness!

Today I got a rare item indeed. (Found thanks to my eagle eyed father-eagle eyed cause no hair gets in his way!) A WC-55 ration box! (bottom 2 pcitures) These are rare items indeed and this is a replica. But even replicas are rare! The gun truck version of mabel had ration boxes by the driver because the driver of such a cool truck needed to have a place to put his candy bars and soder pop. This was often kept cool by a special big box of military flavored ice cream!!!!!! (mmmm OD green flavor), then they would eat it with big wooden spoo........

WAIT!

Sorry-some pesky slavs took over the post while I was going to get a bag of peanut m&ms.

Any way. The ration box was placed on the driver side simply because they had a bunch of gas and water on the passenger side. It was intended to store a weeks worth of food (rations) for the crew as they would often be deployed for an extended period.

Tomorrow I will drill the holes and mount that bad boy then I will begin looking for some of the best c-ration to ever be made to put in it. Fruit Cake! Now you are probably thinking that some more pesky slavs have grabbed hold and are writing but no I assure you I am in full control of my faculties and keyboard. Fruit cake was a highly prized meal for our boys overseas in WW2. I had some once when my cousin scott visited when I was a kid and it actually tasted pretty good. Looked like a festive christmas turd though. So just as you cannot judge a book by its cover so you cannot judge the taste of c-rats by their looks.

Here is the other corner (please see top of the above three images). This one is an exercise in taking out dents and welding bits. Which I am actually enjoying. I have learned a few things as well. DONT weld with fleece on. It lights up like you are covered in lighter fluid. Luckily it goes out quick too and doesn't burn with a flame.