Submitted photo Ron Freedy shows off his 1933 Plymouth Coupe that gets around town and more.

BOARDMAN — Ron Freedy, 72, is by no means ready for a rocking chair. He takes his rocking from the local DJs at local car cruises.

“There are people who are 72 and old, and people who are 72 and not old,” Freedy said. “I am not old.”

Freedy grew up on the East Side of Youngstown and graduated from North High School in 1969, but it was when he was around 12 that his interest turned to wheels and engines.

“Along with my older brother, Walter, we would build go-karts and soup them up,” Freedy said. “We built one that topped off around 50 mph. We drove that all over the East Side.”

He said when they spotted a police car, they would pull into a driveway and run into the backyard until the coast was clear. Even back then, there were laws about driving go-karts on the roads.

Freedy continued building more go-karts and mini bikes as he and his brother developed a passion for motoring. When he turned 16, he bought his first car, a 1959 gun-metal gray Pontiac Catalina 4-door sedan. He drove the car to school and developed a bit of a lead foot.

“I had a terrible lead foot and wrecked a good deal of cars,” he said. “I just couldn’t tell my foot what to do. I was young and dumb.”

At the time, he worked at the Dairy Queen on McGuffey Road. Later, he was hired at General Electric and worked there while raising a family and enjoying his favorite pastime.

He said the big hangouts when he was young included the Gazebo Room in the Wedgewood Plaza, the Rip Room, which he said was at the Boardman Holiday Inn, and McDonald’s at the Lincoln Knolls Plaza. He said the first two were big dance spots and the place for young men to take their dates, or find a date.

“I met my wife (Lenora) at one of those dances and knew she was the one,” Freedy said. “We got married, and she tamed me down.”

Freedy married her in 1969 and together the couple continued to enjoy the automotive hobby.

Around 1973, Freedy got into a new type of ride when he built his first street rod. He said a street rod is a pre-1949 vehicle. His first was a 1938 Dodge.

A friend that worked at GE with him, Frank “Chooch” Gull, was in a new club started in late 1972 called the Youngstown Street Rod Association. That is when Chooch introduced Freedy to Dick Nard from Austintown. Nard, along with Mike Horne and Dick Ferguson, started the car club. It was a given for Freedy and he joined the club and became one of the early members.

“We really got going in 1973, and we began hosting the Friday night cruise-ins at A&W on U.S. 224 in Boardman.,” Freedy said. “Rick Thompson owned A&W and many of the drive-in restaurants were closing, but when we brought the cruises there, we saved the Boardman A&W.”

He said the club later moved its cruise to the Boardman Quaker Steak and Lube, where it currently hosts the weekly cruise at the Shops at Boardman Park. As for the name, it took a big change as well. Freedy said it was renamed Youngstown Rod and Custom because some of the sons of the original members were not into street rods, but were building cars from the 1950s and 1960s. The club was now more than just street rods.

Club member Loretta Ekoniak said the present membership includes two women.

“Presently the YR&C has 51 members,” she said, “including two of the original members who joined in early 1973, John Koosh and Ron Freedy.”

Freedy still loves the street rods and his latest was purchased from a woman in Austintown whose husband built the 1933 Plymouth 2-door Coupe.

“The car has an all-steel body, a Mustang front end, and a Mopar rear end,” Freedy said. “It was done when I bought it , but I did make a few changes to make it my own.”

Today, his sons Brian and Ron Jr. enjoy working on cars, but own the newer ones. Brian has a 1972 Dodge Challenger and Ron Jr. has a 1972 Plymouth Cuda. Ron Jr. does have a project car awaiting him in a 1935 Plymouth Coupe, a vehicle that fits the street rodding scene a little better.

Freedy is likely to give him a hand when the time comes. Freedy lost his wife a few years ago, and nearly all the original car club members have died, but he is not ready to throw in the towel by any means.

“I don’t do near what I used to,” Freedy said. “If it is broke, I’ll fix it, but right now I enjoy life and cruising more. See ya at the Lube.”

jtwhitehouse@vindy.com