Monday, May 14, 2007

Baby You Can Drive My Car

Went to a car show over the weekend. There was quite a variety of cars on display. Everything from a 1928 Ford Model A to a 2007 Ford Shelby Cobra GT500. There were British Triumphs- a TR3 and a couple of TR7s. Whoever decided to put all of them together did not do the TR7s a favor. The TR7 is an ugly car which appears even uglier when sitting right next to a TR3. There were a lot of 1960-1970's muscle cars; Chevy Camaros and Pontiac Firebirds mostly with one Pontiac GTO Judge. I only remember this car because Paul Revere and the Raiders were pitchmen for it in a television commerical.

The two cars that really caught my eye were a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere (that thing is a boat) and a 1963 Mercury Monterey with the Breezeway Rear Window. First of all, this car's slanted three section rear window (close-up here) seemed very stylish to me when I was a kid. Second of all, the fact that you could roll that center window down any time you wanted to had nothing to do with my firm conviction that this was the car for me. Of course riding around in the rain with that window down would be nice though.

Two entries under the "others" categories included a Western Auto store Western Flyer bicycle (the one in the show was green) and some one's tricked out riding lawn mower. The lawn mower's gearshift knob had been removed and in its place was a Bud Light beer tap handle.

Now for the part that causes this story to be listed under supernatural. There were also trucks, including a 1945 Ford pick-up that had not been restored yet. The only thing that had been replaced or repaired was the bench seat in the cab. You got to start somewhere. Another one of the unrestored trucks was a circa late 1970's Chevy Silverado. I walked around this truck and as I walked past the passenger side door my eyes were focused on both the cab and the hood of the truck. Just off center in my vision I could see a young man sitting in the passenger side of the cab. He was in his late teens, maybe early twenties, sitting stiffly and glowering out the windshield. He did not look at me. He had brown hair and was wearing a dark color baseball cap pulled low over his forehead and a black t-shirt. When I turned my head to look directly at him he was no longer there.

I found the whole thing interesting and wondered if what I had seen was a ghost or if what I had seen was just left over energy provided by a young man who once had sat in the cab in a very agitated state. We do leave behind energy as anyone who has ever walked a room where two people have just finished an intense argument know. You know something has happened even if both people deny it.

No comments: