Every car has a story. Doug Bronson found his 1964 red hardtop GTO when he was sleeping nights in a ’64 convertible, traveling around the country in the late 1970s, after he graduated from high school.

&uot;I just wanted to see the world, see what life was all about,&uot; Bronson said. The hardtop has been a character in his life, spanning a time when he discovered the world, met his wife and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

On Saturday he showed his car and swapped stories among a field of about 60 classic cars at the Glenville Days Car Show. Bronson, of Glenville, has a thin frame, and Saturday wore a faded navy blue bandana around his long brown hair, tinted glasses and leg braces, and spoke with a relaxed drawl.

In 1978, his wandering led him to Phoenix, Ariz., where he found his ’64 GTO and met his wife, Julie.

&uot;She said I was ready to leave (Phoenix) and that car was the reason I stuck around,&uot; Jeff said.

&uot;But I was probably wrong. You probably stuck around because of me,&uot; Julie replied.

Jeff said he loves two things about cars &045; the ease of driving them and the challenge of working on them, improving them and seeing what they can do.

But with his multiple sclerosis getting worse, the challenge grows, making it more difficult to sometimes even drive his cars, let alone put a wrench to them. But

he can use levers sometimes to reach some aspects of his engine.

MS affects the nerves, and in Jeff’s case, leaves his muscles sometimes partially or fully unresponsive. Other times, he feels as if he doesn’t have MS. He said having a good mental state usually coincides with his MS going into remission. Driving his car is part of that. &uot;Driving down the road sets me at ease, and I forget all my problems.&uot;

This summer, it’s been bad. For the past couple of weeks, he’s been using crutches, which he said feel like a sign of defeat. Earlier this summer, depression, MS and a bad reaction to medication led him to a hospital stay.

But he said the crutches are just temporary.

Jeff competed in tractor pulls for 20 years before this year. But the stress involved aggravates his condition. Now he does car shows, which involve less stress, but Jeff said he misses the thrill of victory. This year’s will be his last car show of the year.

Julie said it bothers him more than he’ll say. But Jeff admitted that it breaks his heart to be limited as he is.

Jeff is a Pontiac man; he owns ten. The ’64 GTO he showed in Glenville had been out of use since the 1980s. He only got the body painted last year.

Car shows are his alternate for tractor pulls, but he has kept his tractor from his pulling days. He said he’ll keep it in the shed, and maybe take it out of retirement the way he did with his GTO. He said he’s confident he’ll improve.

(Contact Tim Sturrock at tim.sturrock@albertleatribune.com or 379-3438.)