The Good Ole Days

6/8/2017

Well, today’s my birthday. I am, as of the date that this post was supposedly written, 27 years old.

For some, birthdays are a time to moan and groan about your age. I’m more of a glass half full kinda gal. So for me, my birthday is a time to celebrate another successful revolution around the sun without kicking the bucket! I mean, I’m a geologist, a scuba diver, a hot rodder, a road tripper, an adventurer. In other words, my occupational hazards are more than a little high. I wouldn’t have it any other way, of course. I’m just always a little surprised when my birthday comes around again and I’m still all in one piece. Just lucky, I guess.

I awoke nice and snug under my makeshift fender gripper insulators and huddled in my sleeping bag for a while, waiting for the sun to burn the chill out of the air. I am really not one for cold weather, even if I have just undergone several days in 100+ degree temps. Eventually it was warm enough for even me, though, so I had my leisurely flame-grilled poptarts breakfast (yes, you can grill poptarts over a fire…), packed up, and hit the road.

We took CA Hwy 190 west out of the forest, and discovered a delightfully twisty, technical, challenging road. Truth be told, we discovered it very abruptly, as the last posted speed limit had been 60 MPH… and the first warning we got of a twisty road ahead was a giant yellow warning sign saying “HARD RIGHT AHEAD 100 FT, 15 MPH LIMIT”. Some judicious use of the brake pedal later, we had adapted to the slower speeds demanded by the road and settled into the contented swing of the steering wheel back and forth as we wound down endless switchbacks.

Last year Jane’s steering system was really on its last legs, having endured over 40,000 miles of abuse on top of initial install difficulties that prematurely wore the system down. Fortunately, Unisteer, the manufacturer of the rack and pinion system, warrantied the parts out and so this year I’m running with a brand new setup. It was a pleasure to sweep through those wide turns without the pump howling its pain and disapproval at me, and again I was reminded how well this quick steer system is suited to canyon roads.

But alas, all good things must come to an end, and so Hwy 190 dumped me out onto Hwy 99, a much less friendly interstate beleaguered by ever-present California traffic. I do, however, really like the bushes that they planted in the median of this highway.

I spent about three and a half hours staring at them, which was one and a half hours longer than I should have stared at them.

Eventually I turned off onto the road to my friends’ house, and I found myself smiling once more. I stayed with Ken and Gayle last year during Jane’s starter fiasco, and earlier that year when I flew out for American Graffiti Festival (sans Jane). It was really nice to turn onto that familiar road, knowing that friends and good times were sitting at the end of it.

I guess now would be a good time to mention that the American Graffiti Festival – known for its huge Friday night cruise full of rare classic cars, and its huge Saturday car show similarly full of said cars – fell over my birthday this year. So I arrived in Modesto just in time for the festivities to begin. As soon as I reached Ken’s house I hopped out and started cleaning Jane up. You can’t just put your classic car in a massive cruise when it’s covered with road grime, you know. Especially not knowing that car is your pride and joy, and that it just reliably dragged your butt across half of the United States with nary a complaint. Fortunately I’ve got a really good detailing product, Chadwick’s Triple Play, which takes care of the job in less than half an hour. Which was good, because half an hour is pretty much all the time I had to get ready.

The city of Modesto graciously closes down a 3-mile stretch in the heart of the city for the Friday cruise, ensuring that the roads are filled only with thousands of classic cars reliving their glory days. It’s wonderfully nostalgic – just a lot of cars puttering around, their owners checking out other cars and hollering out the window at one another and looking for the next big modification to do on their vehicles while desperately keeping an eye on the temperature and fuel gauges. My friends and I headed down to the cruise around 6 – Ken and Kennan in their ’65 Mustang, Jeff and Diane in their ’69 Mustang, and me in Jane, of course. Since the organizers treat it like a parade with a definitive start time, we pulled up behind the last people in line, parked, and got out to wander around the impromptu block party that had started in the road.

Around 6:30, the loudspeakers announced that the parade was under way, and that we should return to our cars and get ready to move! But since the front of the line was nowhere in sight, we figured we should just keep hanging out. So we did. And another 20 minutes later, the front of the line finally passed us going the other way down the street.

And another 20 minutes after that, everyone in our vicinity made a mad dash for their cars as they realized that the line was finally moving. You could almost hear the desperate prayers rising up in a cloud above the parade: “PLEASE let my car start.” Dozens of tired, worn starters cranked over, and motors eventually sleepily coughed to life. Others wrestled with motors that roared and raged, clearly built more for racing than slow cruising. But eventually move we did, miraculously in time to set off without delay. And so we made our way down the boulevard at a sedate pace, basking in the sounds of a long-gone time.

(or, you know, the dulcet tones of Bret Michaels and some good ole 80's hair metal)

The Push of Shame

Pursued by a piss yellow 32 deuce coupe

It took us a full 2 hours to do a circuit of the town, and every minute was wonderful. Long as the cruise was, it was a chance to relive a better time – or, in my case, to live it for the first time. I had plenty of time to reflect on the nostalgia that drenched the cruise. For a lot of people, I think that this cruise was akin to taking their elders to a place of their childhood for a brief visit. Cars that sit in the garage most of the year are finally given a chance to emerge and remember what they once were. And their stewards baby them along carefully, recalling their long histories. But the stewards themselves get swept up as well, remembering a time when life was as simple as driving endlessly up and down Main Street and excitement was just a car length away.

I wish that I had been there. But the American Graffiti Festival cruise at least gave me a glimpse into that life.

As Jane puttered along contentedly, for once happy to scoot along at barely parking lot speeds, I wondered if this was a thing that her original owner did. I’ll never know what this car has seen in the 52 years it has existed. In over half a century, it’s sure to have seen a lot of changes, good times and bad, dozens or hundreds or even thousands of passengers. It is strange to try to imagine those who might have sat in the driver’s seat before me. In a way I myself am also a steward of my own little piece of history, though I don’t have the benefit of the long memory of some of the other owners on the cruise. The difference is that for us, history is still being made. Where many of the cars on the cruise – not all, but many - would go back to their garages after their one weekend of fun, my car and I would go on to seek more. We prefer not to become ghosts of the past.

After departing the cruise, we headed back to Ken’s house and met up with some other friends for a barbeque and some birthday cake. We laughed long into the night, talking cars and people and travel and life. It occurred to me that today while others were reliving the good ole days, I was having a blast making new memories, with nowhere else I would have rather been. For me, the good ole days are now.

Happy birthday to me :)

Kelly signing out.