Wayback on Pavement
The moment I saw her eyes lock on, I knew I had to watch.
And so I did.
Amongst the crowd moving back and forth, I was still.
Slowly the elderly lady moved against the human wave, eyes straight ahead, one hand on her 4 legged cane.
A shuffle with purpose.
And then she stopped, as did her cane which now stood on its own.
Slowly, her cane hand reached out and gently touched the fender of one old car that sat amongst a hundred old cars.
And there she stood.
An antique car show is never only about the cars, never only about the shine and the corn dogs.
For some it’s a parking lot time machine.
Wayback on pavement.
And there she stood.
No longer old.
No longer on a cane.
Now once again a young lady with flowing hair on roller skates, high school dances, first kisses.
“You know,” she said to me as I took a photo of the car nameplate, “my parents had a car just like this. A Bel Air, two doors…”
“I know,” I replied, and she smiled…
“…I used to climb into the backseat, sat up front when it was just father and me.”
…and in my head this song played…
“There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain…”
Wayback on pavement.
A car show is never just about the cars.
A car show for some is once again sitting in the front seat with a long gone loved one.
The Annual Farmington, CT Fire Department Car Show
I’ve been to a couple of the car shows in town here, I know it happens every year, don’t know the number of this show.
The money raised here will be used for the “LIVE” fire training facility, not sure where that is located, but this I do know…Standing “O” for these fire fighting folks, all of whom are neighbors.
The department was established in 1803 (our town was founded in 1645) and from what I’ve read consists of 123 Fire Fighters.
114 of whom volunteer.
These people run into what other folks run from, they put their lives on the line for our lives.
Special folks these people, and they are always in my thoughts and heart as well as their families who I know worry about them when they answer the call.
Be safe…and THANK YOU.
“Please bow your head and…”
As I was walking into the parking lot…
…the crowd was still, heads bowed, some people praying softly in whispers, others praying within themselves for the two Bristol CT police officers ambushed and killed a few days ago. God bless them, and God help us for what we do to each other.
I do not take photos of moments like this, never have, never will, there you go.
And then under a perfect New England Fall blue sky framed in orange and brown came the Red White & Blue…
…O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
I rarely take pictures of entire cars choosing form, over function.
(Click the arrows to view)
There crossed my path an elderly man pushing a flimsy walker…
…I don’t think he ever saw me as I stopped to let him pass.
His head moved slowly up and down, eyes focused, determined.
With every step he looked to where the walker would travel, and then his head would raise and he would focus straight ahead, eyes locked on one car until his feet had to move again.
And then his head looked down, his back would hunch, his hands would tighten, and with sheer will he would propel himself a couple more inches toward his goal…an old black automobile.
“Do you mind if I hold that wheel sir…”
Said powered within two breaths mangled and raspy from decades of unfiltered cigerettes.
It seemed talking was harder on him than walking…
…he would breathe and then say a few words, breathe in, speak out…the longer the question the more breaths it took. I heard him say that his “Grampy” had “…one of these when I was a youngster.”
Breathe in, speak out.
“…he would drive it to town for supplies, Sunday drives too…”
Breathe in, speak out.
“…and then sometimes he would let me drive, I’d sit on his lap and steer you know. I was just a little kid then you know.”
Breath in, speak out.
I don’t know who he was speaking to because I never saw anyone near him or the automobile. I might of missed it.
Or not.
Doesn’t matter.
His finger prints are on that steering wheel…and maybe even his Grampy’s as well. as soon as he touched the wheel he smiled, and he was stilling hanging on as I left to give the man, his space. Even in a crowd, respect private time and the memories it brings.
As you age and get into the big number years, the years go by so fast, the minutes, hours and days though go by so slow.
Breath in, speak out…
…so slow.
My Wayback on Pavement
I turned 16 in 1968, almost dead center in the 1960’s “Muscle Car” era.
My start with massive horsepower and street light to street light racing didn’t begin so well as my younger sister reminded me the other day. “I still laugh about you trying to put oil into a car…”
I was 15 at the time, I was getting the “now you’re about to become a man” talk from my father as he handed me a can of oil, “Here go add this oil to my car.” After what may have been a half-hour or so of waiting in the kitchen for my return he came out to see what I was doing and found me patiently, carefully trying to add the oil to his car by pouring it down the dipstick tube.
Made sense to me.
Made family lore still remembered by little sisters now some 55 years later.
My Buddy “Philly A” had one of these…a Plymouth Road Runner…
…zero to sixty in half a blink with a 16 year old behind the wheel. Think about that. “Philly-A” was just a month past riding his bicycle around town and now he was driving up and down the streets sitting on a 300+ horsepower, 100mph in the quarter mile beast…and the kid still had a paper route.
“Philly-A:” 1st neighborhood kid to lay rubber, 1st neighborhood kid to pop a wheelie, 1st neighborhood kid to do 4 consecutive “doughnuts” in the Two Guys Department store parking lot while eating a cinnamon glazed doughnut from Freddies Doughnuts on Main Street…Buffalo.
True kid legend that “Philly-A” was.
It was all about speed back then…
…most of my “gearhead” buddies had muscle cars long before any of them had any actual real muscles.
Gas was 33¢ a gallon and no one even knew what MPG meant…
…we had used Dodges, Chevys, Fords, Plymouths…speed was all that mattered…that…and the ability to spin the back wheels in front of a cute cheerleader.
On the other hand, I had a Corvair. Paid $200-bucks…half the money from my Grandmother (God rest her soul) and half from my Courier-Express paper route tips, chores, and coins from under the couch cushions.
My zero to 60-mph was just a hair under one minute with the wind.
It was a convertible, permanently, I once put the top down and the struts broke, could never get it back up, drove it to school all winter long bundled up with the heater on high and a snow shovel in the back seat to clear the snow out when classes ended and I had to drive home.
Not sure Ralph Nader had clued in on it yet but while I owned it the thing ran fine until I tried to hit 65mph on “The Youngman” expressway and for some reason the back wheels suddenly bowed outward and the engine (it was a rear engine beast) started scraping the highway.
Left a gouge mark on both lanes…and some oil.
Towing it cost more than I paid for it, I told the tow truck driver to take it to a garage, he just smiled and let it, and me out at a junkyard.
My next vehicle for several months was made by…Schwinn.
The next car I bought (all by myself) for $25, it was a very old Bel Air…it was yellow, bright yellow…handprinted yellow with a paint brush. For the short time I owned it I was always pulling paint brush bristles out of the paint on the hood, doors, trunk…
Two days after I bought it both door handles came off in my hands, most of the car was held together with “Bondo.” I kept it a month or so until I got tired of climbing in and out of the windows to get in or out of it.
Lost a girlfriend too because of the car, I didn’t realize she was stuck climbing in the passenger window when I started to back down her driveway. She was okay, as far as I could tell, but her father chased me halfway down the block yelling until he started coughing because of all the smoke that came out of the back of the thing.
I got $5-bucks for it at the junkyard mainly because the radio worked.
He had a gray Corvette ball cap on his head and a tiny green Fujifilm disposable camera in his hand…
…and he was staring at…
…this.
“Bought me one when I got discharged, not like this or this nice, but had me one you know.”
His hair was gray as was the stubble on his cheeks.
Skinny leg jeans with skinny legs in them, brown belt held the pants up as his entire upper body seemed caved in.
Blue polo shirt tucked in and on it was a patch that matched the emblem of the car he stood in front of.
“Never married, nope.”
Said he didn’t have any kids…that he knew of.
Said to many jobs to keep count.
Said will take some pictures but will wait until his next Social Security check comes in to get them printed.
I had yet to say anything but, “Hi.”
His head trembled as did his hands, so did the cigarette that dangled between his lips.
Said ain’t got much to do “no more.”
And as I looked into his bloodshot eyes I thought I saw a monthly calendar stuck on an old refrigerator, and all the boxes for days, were blank.
Except the calendar box for today.
Come on, wander around with me at the show…
(just click the photo to see it in full color…18 pics in all)
My Turn…
…it was a Mustang…a BOSS Mustang…a very fast Mustang…VERY…
…that my fiance, Barbara, drove to the Providence Rhode Island airport to pick up my buddy Tom who was going to be my best man at our wedding…which was the next day. I was bartending that Friday night and couldn’t make the run myself.
Tom in the Mustang to Barbara : “You can drive this.” Like I said it was a MUSCLE car…very muscular.
Barbara: “Yep,” said smiling as she shifted on up through the gear box.
That was over 48 years ago.
Barbara and I are still married and if we still had that car she could still drive it very fast…VERY.
And Tom, still great friends, Tom and Dorothy, his wife, came to our daughter’s wedding a couple years back.
We got married on a Saturday…in between other weddings, the priest snuck us in, he kept a few of the flowers from the first wedding and put them up on the altar for us, the organ lady stayed instead of taking a break so we gave her $20 as a thank you, the wedding reception was a breakfast in the Holiday Inn dinning room, the same Holiday Inn where I stayed during my first week at the new job…Head Bartender/Assistant Manager at the Providence Steak & Brew Restaurant.
I found the priest that married us because it was his name on a sticker on the the inside cover of the bible that was in the nightstand by my bed in the Holiday Inn.
Our wedding was attended by 7 people, both our parents, my two younger sisters, and Barbara’s sister, Maureen, who was her Maid-of-Honor.
A month or so after we got married the Oil Embargo happened, we learned how to figure out that MPG thing (the BOSS got 8), and gas went from 30-some-cents-a-gallon to the unheard of price of 55¢ a gallon, and more. Lines formed everywhere to fill up, at the restaurant I put another dishwasher on the clock and his only job was to take the workers cars and go sit in line to fill them up.
Good thing Steak & Brew isn’t around to read that…
We had to sell the BOSS, traded it in almost even up, we had to kick in $200…
…for a brown hatchback…
…PINTO.
80 Horsepower.
And a bomb under the back seat.
ALL TRUE
Wayback on Pavement.
Rust Amongst The Polish
One of the best parts of owning an old rusty truck…
…are those time worn indentations on that ol’ driver’s seat that fit your ass perfectly.
Ahhh.
An old truck is like an old dog, it knows you and all your faults, and you know that old dog and all its faults, and stinks, but you both long ago worked things out and are long into being old friends.
The Old rusty truck sat amongst all the waxed sparkly chrome…
…as if it was a retired longshoreman sitting with a draft beer at the far end of the bar in a sawdust floor Gin Mill.
It knew it belonged here, knew it earned its place…
…not real sure about all these other pretty-boys taking up spots though, “Craft” cars possibly.
It was at once the Beast & the Beauty
I watched as most of those who walked by the old rusty truck stopped to look, to touch, to smile…
…it was as if amongst all the glitter, all the chrome, all the 4-wheel stars they had finally found…KIN.
An old truck is The Common Man made of iron…
…it is as well known to most as is the “old Neighborhood” they grew up in.
I grew up on a block of working class folks, many of whom built trucks of iron and steel…
…and of whom themselves were built strong, tough.
The guy next door bolted bumpers on the vehicles that came down the line, raised 4 kids on union wages and a summer side gig of painting houses.
Guy on the other side poured concrete, guy couple doors away bricklayer, guy in the house behind ours plastered ceilings and drywall, came home so dusty he had to change in his garage Summer & Winter.
My dad sold appliances at Sears Roebuck, my mother was a cafeteria lady at the junior high school.
By age 10 I knew what a Layoff meant, knew what “Changeover” at a factory meant, knew what “workin’ hurt” meant.
And so at a car show that for many wasn’t just simply about the cars, but also about what those cars mean to all of us, the memories they bring back, the emotions of days gone by…
…My BEST OF SHOW here…would be a truck…this truck.
Seems right, doesn’t it.
A Huge Thank You To the Farmington CT Fire Department and to all who put this gig on every year.
Thank you for the time you put into this, thank you for the memories that I get from it… and from all of those folks who also enjoy Wayback on Pavement thank you for your efforts as well…I watched the crowd, trust me, you done good.
To all you who read this PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL FIREFIGHTERS, here are a few links to help you do that.
If you’d like to help out my local fire department, the men/women who put on this show, here’s a link that will let you do so: Farmington CT Fire Department
Also I’ve got great friends at the Waukegan Fire Department, you can help them by donating to their VITAL LINK FUND
Same holds true for my friends in the Tulsa Fire Department, you can help them by donating to their Firefighter Benevolent Fund
The Kenmore NY Volunteer Fire Department (my home town) you can contact them here
The Fresno CA Fire Department…and adopted home town and where I got my first News break…you can donate here to them.
And my wife’s father, Art Sullivan, was a career firefighter with the Buffalo, NY Fire Department (Engine 34/Ladder 7) Donation Information Start Here
If you would like to help YOUR local fire deparment this link will help you find how to reach them to see what you can do to help: Find My Local Fire Department