Pipe Dream

Over the long weekend Brent and I packed up our little kumquat and headed south to visit Mom and Dad. Initially when we began making these trips we intended to use their tiny mission apartment as home base while we made forays into Manhattan. Silly as it may seem, we're now content to just hang out and chat with them while we're there. Well, as long as we can make it to Irving's for some melt-in-your mouth pastrami for lunch that is :) On this particular weekend Dad had some other ideas since there just happened to be an antique car show across the road from the mission office. It was inevitable, we had to go.

You have to understand that growing up I was a regular at what's known as a swap meet. In my adulthood I now understand this is where those aficionados of collector cars assemble to seek out various rare car parts as well as other period memorabilia. As a kid however, it was nothing but seemingly endless miles of oily, rusty car parts laid out on the grass while the sea of beer-belly buffalo plaid milled about. "No Refunds" was often posted at the entrance. There was a reason. It looked like a bulimic, cancerous car had thrown up its insides. I suppose I should have learned patience while Dad perused these apparently priceless items but I have to admit I hated it. Car shows were marginally better, at least all those parts were put together inside the brightly colored and perfectly polished cars. Still, as a little girl they weren't exactly the stuff of fairy tales.

It's with this background that I went to the car show with my parents and my little family. The show was indeed impressive with miles of classic cars. Mom wanted to play a game, which car would YOU want to go home with? She began to tell me how they decided on all their classic cars: the '31 Model A, the '56 Thunderbird and the '66 Mustang. Mom pointed out the low riders and told me how they're "not our thing." Dad took me under his wing and as we walked past the open hoods he showed me how to pick out the spark plugs. He showed me the difference between a V-6, a V-8 and a straight 6. Dad pointed out the carburetors and told me the power of an engine comes from being able to pull the fuel in and out most efficiently. The word "piston" made it in there somewhere but to be honest, he lost me at that point. Mom mentioned that if you looked around, you saw a lot of gray hair. Like so many hobbies, this one seems to have lodged itself largely with the Baby Boomer generation.

As we headed back towards the entrance I was thoroughly enjoying myself despite the heat and humidity. Brent and Liesel, the two human furnaces, were positively roasting but even they seemed to be having a good time. As we rounded the last corner, there it was: a 1957 white Thunderbird being raffled off. After the miles of beautiful cars I couldn't help myself, I bought the smallest allowable book of tickets. Mom passed behind me and whispered, "I think I've seen that in other shows" which was her gentle way of really saying, "I can't see gambling for beans and if you plunk down that $10 it's going to hurt my Scotch." True, true... but a girl can dream, can't she?