'48 coupe couple drove to wedding returns as anniversary gift

CHELAN — Max Hand says that after nearly 50 years of marriage, it's important to have a few surprises left in a relationship.

Pat Hand says she knows her husband, and she would never have guessed he could pull off a shocker like the one he threw at her Saturday.

The couple went to the Fall in Chelan car show, and she never once suspected that he had anything to do with that 1948 Plymouth coupe lined up with all the other beautiful old cars.

Sure it was the same model, and the same baby-blue color as the one they drove to Coeur d'Alene on Dec. 30, 1958, to get married. There was the same winged emblem painted on it.

Indeed, the more she inspected this car, the more it reminded her of their first car. "Oh my gosh, Max, Bonnie, you've got to see it. It's just like ours! It even has the same name as the car we had when we got married!" she recalls telling her husband and sister after spotting "The Blue Goose" painted in small letters above the gas intake.

Then her son told her to check out the owner, listed on the windshield.

When she saw her own name, she figured her husband had spotted the car before she did, and quickly arranged this little joke for her.

"Then he hands me the title to the car, and it hit me. I started bawling and laughing, and everyone around me started clapping," she said.

Max Hand, of Oroville, Okanogan County, said he couldn't have asked for a better reaction from his wife.

"It turned out to be a perfect presentation. The weather, the whole thing couldn't have been more perfect, it worked out so well," he said.

It took him more than a year of planning to arrange the surprise birthday and anniversary gift for his wife.

He bought the car last year in April and had it shipped to Idaho, where their daughter picked it up for them and stored it in her garage for a time. "We were sneaky. My whole family was involved in this — all the kids, her brother-in-law and sister," he said.

But Hand couldn't keep it in his daughter's garage for long.

He owns Max's Service Center in Oroville, and he wanted it in his own shop so he could work on the car after work or when he got a bit of free time. That meant people who came by for work on their own cars would see it and might mention it to Pat. Instead of trying to keep it a secret from everyone, he told anyone who came into the shop that he was trying to surprise his wife. "I told them, 'If she finds out, it's your fault,' " he said.

Hand said they were getting down to the wire when he brought it to Johnny's Body Shop in Oroville for the paint job, and they didn't get it out until Friday morning, the day before the car show.

Their son arranged to haul it to Chelan, telling his mother he was going to Wenatchee to look at a car.

Hand said he could have waited until their anniversary in December, but with a car show in Chelan the day before her birthday, he decided this would be a better way to surprise her.

Both went to high school in Manson, Chelan County, so Chelan is almost like home.

Pat is impressed that he kept the secret from her for so long. "He's a talker. It must have been hard for him," she said. And the gift? "It's just awesome. He's a sweetheart."