Man, I love the sound of a lopey cam in the morning! We are opening the gates at the MVA at 8:00 the morning of the Alzheimer’s Show. They’re already backed-up damn near to the Interstate. Our annual third-Sunday-in-September Show is a great way to kick-off Fall so you gotta understand their eagerness.
Five ’til 9 o’clock and EZ just made his first announcement over the PA system. An hour and five minutes until the show starts and the main lot is already more than three-quarters full. They’ve already registered nearly 200 cars!
It’s a perfect early Fall morning, brisk and clear as a bell, a slight breeze to push the sounds of the cacklefest toward downtown Frederick—a little free advertising. Maybe we’ll get the attention of some of the early Fair-goers. By 9:30 the main lot is full and they’re parking cars in the overflow lot, well over 200 cars registered by now!
I appreciate the variety—the mix of vehicles this show attracts—plenty of antiques, classics, hot rods and muscle cars to be sure. A lot of interesting late model cars and trucks, too. One of the categories I like (although there’s no actual category) is the truly unique vehicles: EZ’s 100% hand-built Heinz 57 roadster, Bob Clubb’s Model T Paddy Wagon, a Jeep CJ disguised as an Urban Assault Vehicle, the three-wheeled, motorcycle-powered Lomax. The essence of hot rodding is expressing your individuality and showing to the world!
After so many years of ho-hum cars it is good to see late models that spark some interest. One in particular, a Cadillac CTS-V, is probably a future icon the way the high performance muscle cars are today. Another late model I picked for my own OCD Award was the White with Orange stripes Camaro that carried the color scheme under the hood and to the monster 24 inch wheels—lots and lots of white and orange.
One of the highlights of the Alzheimer’s Show each year is the Auction; I’m sure a bunch of the folks that come out don’t care much at all for the cars, they want to BID! This year we added a big tent just for the Auction and, by 10 0’clock the hard-core bidders were setting-up their chairs. Listening to John Roop’s spiel wears me out, though.
Another highlight, at least for me, was the Rick De Bow show over by the Moon Bounce. The rapport he seems to have with the kids warms the cockles of my Loman and Barkley heart, we’re lucky to have him over there! Thank you for sparing those kids having to be tended by a curmudgeon like me.
I thought this might be the year I finally get a trophy but darned if Paul didn’t outbid me. He got to take home the trophy and neither one of us had a car in the show. This year’s Alzheimer’s Show is going to be hard to beat but we’ve got the 20th coming up!
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
The Roads Scholar
The sign above the highway is telling me: Report Suspicious Activity, 800-492-8477. I wonder what I should be watching-out for. Well, on one recent trip I saw a car in which the driver was wearing some kind of bulky head covering; that proved to be a false alarm, however, when the lady took the towel off her wet hair and began blow-drying it.
Another time I passed a woman who was applying her make-up as she drove. I didn’t think that needed to be reported, it’s certainly wasn’t unusual except, in this case, I had a suspicion that she was wasting her time, the make-up wasn’t going to do that much good.
The other evening I was passed by a whole group of motorcycles, the riders all tricked-out in their drugstore biker garb. Back in the day I could have reported a gang of outlaw bikers, probably armed and carrying illegal drugs. Today I suspect they’re carrying AARP membership cards and a weekend supply of Viagra.
After seeing that Report . . . sign again I finally put their number at #1 on my speed dial. My only concern is; if I get caught using my cell phone to report suspicious activity while driving will I get a ticket? I my call saves all from getting blown to smithereens will my fifteen minutes of fame (I will get that, right? If not, why bother making the call?) trump the calling-while-driving fine?
I’m so embarrassed! I just passed a truck full of fertilizer that I thought might have been hijacked (by whoever it is we’re afraid of) to be used as a bomb. I called “the number” and told the person who answered what I’d seen. The first question I was asked was how did I know the truck was carrying fertilizer? Duh, it was written right on the bags: C-O-W M-A-N-U-R-E! Then the person told me that that’s not the kind of fertilizer used to make bombs.
One of the most common suspicious activities I see on the highway is folks masquerading as clever with cute or witty vanity plates. I mean, how smart is it to admit you are 2DUM2NO? Or that you got the car 4BN EZ? Some vanity plates say so much more than just a handful of letters and numbers, like the defense attorney’s plate CRIMPAZ.
The plate CARGASM, on the other hand, raises more questions than it answers. For in-stance, is this something that’s happening to the car or the driver? If it’s the driver does it happen all the time or just after certain maneuvers? If it’s the car, how do we know it’s not just faking?
Another time I passed a woman who was applying her make-up as she drove. I didn’t think that needed to be reported, it’s certainly wasn’t unusual except, in this case, I had a suspicion that she was wasting her time, the make-up wasn’t going to do that much good.
The other evening I was passed by a whole group of motorcycles, the riders all tricked-out in their drugstore biker garb. Back in the day I could have reported a gang of outlaw bikers, probably armed and carrying illegal drugs. Today I suspect they’re carrying AARP membership cards and a weekend supply of Viagra.
After seeing that Report . . . sign again I finally put their number at #1 on my speed dial. My only concern is; if I get caught using my cell phone to report suspicious activity while driving will I get a ticket? I my call saves all from getting blown to smithereens will my fifteen minutes of fame (I will get that, right? If not, why bother making the call?) trump the calling-while-driving fine?
I’m so embarrassed! I just passed a truck full of fertilizer that I thought might have been hijacked (by whoever it is we’re afraid of) to be used as a bomb. I called “the number” and told the person who answered what I’d seen. The first question I was asked was how did I know the truck was carrying fertilizer? Duh, it was written right on the bags: C-O-W M-A-N-U-R-E! Then the person told me that that’s not the kind of fertilizer used to make bombs.
One of the most common suspicious activities I see on the highway is folks masquerading as clever with cute or witty vanity plates. I mean, how smart is it to admit you are 2DUM2NO? Or that you got the car 4BN EZ? Some vanity plates say so much more than just a handful of letters and numbers, like the defense attorney’s plate CRIMPAZ.
The plate CARGASM, on the other hand, raises more questions than it answers. For in-stance, is this something that’s happening to the car or the driver? If it’s the driver does it happen all the time or just after certain maneuvers? If it’s the car, how do we know it’s not just faking?
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