Summertime Waits For No Man...

Good lord, here it is the middle of August already. Somebody make it stop, or at least slow down…. please! Evenings are starting to get noticeably shorter, Ri’s wedding is less than a month away, we still don’t have all our utilities in place at the campsite and I’ve got a bunch of projects that were suppose to be done by now and I’ve only got 8 / 10 weeks left to finish things I haven’t even started yet. So, I guess what I’m saying is everything is pretty much normal around here. There’s not enough cash available to cover everything that needs to be taken care of and there’s places to go and things to do while the warm weather is still here, so it’s down to making choices on what gets done sooner and what gets done later.

This past week was kind of a quiet one. With the wife up North at band camp and Chris gone most of the time, either at work or skateboarding, I felt like the lonesome bachelor. It was just me and my four, four-legged friends who were always up for a game of toss the ball, or a nap, depending on whatever I was doing at the time. I pretty much just took it easy all week, didn’t do anything constructive around the house like I should’ve and the week still zoomed by.

Monday night I just hung out in the den, listened to music and worked on website stuff. Tuesday me and Bailey went up to Quick’s for the cruise-in and hung out there for the evening. There was a guy there with a ’51 Merc, that he’d just pulled out of a barn somewhere, that had for sale signs on it, but even though I’d love to have a Merc from that era I know there’s no way. Right now the ’54 wagon is up on Ebay and I think I may end up getting her sold this time. As much as I don’t want to sell it there’s just no point to keeping it up on jack stands in the garage for the next 5 years while I try to find time to work on it. I’ve just put a couple too many irons in the fire at one time and I need to back off a bit, take care of some things and then try again. Click HERE for Quick's pics.

Wednesday morning at work things were pretty somber. We had a meeting right at 7:00am and were informed that Dean Orchard, the plant Manager, had dropped over while out on his boat Tuesday night and died. Dean had been with the company since it's inception and for those folks who'd been at Nowak for a long time it was an upsetting situation. Myself, having been there only 6 months or so, didn't really have a chance to get to know him all that well so I was one of the few people in the plant Friday during the funeral service.

Wednesday was a hang around the house and do not much of anything night. Thursday night I went up to visit Ri and Adam and took them out to El Caminoes for dinner. After dinner we cruised around downtown Muskegon for awhile.....went down by Pere Marquette Park and also checked out the dock for the new Lake Express ferry that goes over to Wisconsin and back again. About 8:00pm I got back on the bike and headed for home. Then, it was the weekend again and Friday evening found us, (me and Bailey again), headed to Coopersville for their Summerfest celebration and the Del Shannon Cruise. We got there about 5:30pm so we’d have time to wander around a bit before the start of the cruise at 6:30. Spent some time chatting with folks and took a couple pics as cars from all over lined up for the cruise. By the time we fired up the car to head out there was 3 lines of cars as far as the eye could see in both directions, quite a few more than last year to be sure.

The cruise itself went pretty smooth. It took about an hour to get from our starting point out by the highway to the destination, the High School parking lot. Along the route there were a lot of folks out in their lawn chairs watching the procession amble by. There were folks with video cameras filming the event and kids waving at every car that rolled by. Both the horn and the clutch got a work out. Some folks were more proactive and had their hoses out to water down the street in the hopes that someone would ignore the warnings from the Sheriff’s Department and give ‘em a display of horsepower. Before the start of the cruise there were 2 girl sheriff’s deputies going up and down the rows of cars handing out their “smoking your tires is a no no and will get you a hefty fine” leaflets and were known as the “Killjoy Sisters” by those of us who see no harm in a bit of tire smoke now and then. During the cruise there were those with the "damn the torpedo's" approach to life who lit 'em up from time to time. We saw the smoke up ahead that indicated a blantant disrespect for the law (you betcha!) but didn't do any tire smokin' ourselves. I'm always afraid that a bout of showing off will result in a broken clutch or busted motor mounts

Once we got to the high school we parked the car and then headed up into the stands with the intention of hanging around to hear the Scottville Clown Band do their thing, but it was gonna be awhile before they were ready to go and after a bit of sitting we got antsy and decided to head out on the road to home. the rest of the evening was spent in the den listening to tunes and working on website stuff.

After a short night's sleep we woke up at 6:00am, got dressed, rolled the car out of the garage and headed back to Coopesville for the car show portion of the weekend. We got there before 7:00am and logged in as car #128. I'm pretty sure from the looks of the crowd of cars that was there that there were more than 127 of 'em there......that was just the ones registered for the event. After getting the car parked and display set up we headed down into town to the Country Cafe for a good breakfast. The place was packed but we managed to find a empty two person booth. After cleaing our plate and paying the bill we headed back towards the car and found a red Mustang convertible parked next to us. After a moment or two to process the info we realized it was the same gentleman that had parked next to us in Grand Haven a couple weeks ago. So while we cleaned up the hot rod a bit we shot the breeze with our neighbor.

After we got sick of cleaning and polishing we grabbed the camera gear and for most of the rest of the day we hiked around checking out all the cool rides. The show this year was considerably bigger than last year, so much in fact that they closed another street just to handle all the cars looking for a place to park. I didn't manage to cover the whole joint, but did get a bunch of cool shots. Talked to some nice folks too........one gentleman in particular who'd restored a 1950 Studebaker convertible and did it the right way. It was a very cool ride. Before we were ready to call it a show it was time to give out the trophy's so we went down to the park and got a seat to see who was going to take home a dustcatcher.............Click HERE for all the Del Shannon Car Show pics.

The last couple years the final chapter of the Del Shannon Car show has been the round of burnouts done by guys as they were leaving the park and heading for home but this year it was not to be. The city brought in a couple of their trucks and parked them in such a manner that you had to go around them from one side of the street to the other. We can thank the ambulance chasing lawyers and the insurance bastards for killing off another tradition under the thinly veiled guise of public safety and liability. Bah.

By the time I got back home from the car show the wife had made it back home from her week long adventure as band camp champerone so we traded stories for a bit and then I called Clover Bar and ordered a pizza. After dinner it was pretty much a time to wind down. Before I knew it, it was 2am and time to get horizontal for a couple hours.

Sunday I had planned on going up to Whiskey Creek to do some work, but after taking the time to make breakfast and putzing around downstairs for a bit I decided to forego the trip and just rest up here. I ended up spending a good portion of the afternoon dozing off and on. About 5:30pm I finally picked myself up off the couch and got cleaned up a bit to go down to Jeannies for the Sunday evening get-together. I had pics I'd shot last week that I wanted to show off so I grabbed the pics, my gear and headed out the door and down 31. I showed off the shots I'd taken of one gent's car and he liked 'em enough to give me a ten spot for my troubles. I ended up doing another shoot after the crowd had left for the evening and by the time I finished that and packed up the car we were about the only one there. We cruised thru town after we got back to Grand Haven and then came on home. We spent the rest of the evening filling up the diswasher and making brownies. It was time for bed before I was ready to go but nothing new there......another week was just on the other side of the pillow and one of the high points of the week was going to be another visit from Jen and her whole crew. More on that next week, lord willin'.

TC