Car Pride Day

What seemed hardly begun is already winding down. A lot of things are like that when you start looking into it.  In case you missed it, it’s “Car Pride Day”.  Car pride day is when you put the words car, pride and day in quotations and capitalize each word so everything seems more important than it just might be. No matter.

It’s October, a storied month, and you’ve got a lot of reading to do.  But before that the car is a mess and if you don’t do something it’ll just sit.  Get out there and clean up the car before it’s too late.  Pride of ownership of a fairly clean car.  It’s you.

1955 Ford Customline SedanI remember these in my dreams.  A starry sky full of 55 Fords.  It’s like some antique show out here and we’re just spraying her down first, then we get in there with the mild detergent and water.  Then, because winter’s coming on, time for a wax job.

You’re in a hurry because you’re meeting your girlfriend at 3:30 pm.  I am?  He likes hot cars and knows about the “Clear coat” cars get these days before they leave the factory.  You know nothing about that, you’re opening your can of carnuaba.  You know about the paint job on your car and it’s lousy.

I love the “egg-crate grill”.  Love the concept.  Love the idea.  You know, it’s just all that antique-y stuff again.

Of course it involves vacuuming too.  Of course it does.  I was just about to say it.  You can do it whenever.  The front and the back and  the trunk, right?  This is one old trunk.  But huge!  And the liner’s in pretty good shape.  I love this car.  God, these people had it good.  TBC…

1955 Ford Customline Tudor photog courtesy the photographer

 

Cinquante

I know. It’s ridiculous. It’s crazy. I didn’t want to do it but they saw me first. imagesThose beautiful little cans of ‘50’ in that still compelling, nostalgia-generating bright green and white 12-pack box with the red lettering. What are you talkin about, mister?

I saw a twelve-pack of ‘50’ at our local, overpriced liquor shop.  I go in.  Go to the coolers.  Top of the flow racks right to the left of what I was about to grab, there they are, a row coming down of 12-pack boxes of Labatt’s 50.  “What’s this?,”  I’m thinking.  “It’s wrong.  They don’t sell this here, not for years.”  I would know.  I’ve been guzzling bier in several decades.  This can’t be Cinquante.

Cinquante.  That’s what Quebecers say, and when in Quebec do as  Quebecers do.  They appreciate that.  “Deux Cinquantes, por favor.”  I know.  My French is execrable.  50.  Something about 50.  50 years.  50 beers.  It just flows.

It’s all over now.  All the 50 is gone and I can’t find it anywhere.  I’ve no idea where the booze shop got it from and it was at an attractive price.  It’s a shame.  A tragedy.  I can’t go on.  I’ll go on.

Absolutely.  Last beer commercial you’ll ever see around here.  You said that, Dudelette.

“Cinquante, s’il vous plait!”  I used to love doing that.  In Hull, Chicoutimi, Montreal, Quebec City.  Nostalgia.  Once you figure out what it means it tastes pretty good.

Future Dump

It’s got potential. Especially when you’re desperate for content. I lie around in my little world and wonder what to do next just to get through this thing.  What thing?  And I know it’s hard.  It’s what keeps me going.  Being hard.  As rock.  Harder.  Softer.

And, vastly more important, keeps you, honoured followers, going.  Going where?  Or as they say in old Mexico Mas importante.  Is that really true?  I mean that they say that in old Mexico?  What about New Mexico?

IMAG1365Some days it just gets strange.  There goes the cliché alarm.  Darn.  Forgot to turn it off before I came in here.  Whoop whoop.

Some days you do everything the same but it doesn’t make any difference, other days you do things differently and it doesn’t make any difference.  It’s still change.  And you need change for the parking meter.  Keep paying and everything’s good.  Or you can phone it in.  It’s expensive but you make lots of money.  No issue.

Time to sell.  That’s my advice.  Get out while you can.  Whoop whoop.  Take the money and run.  Whoop.  It was a funny joke.  What did it mean?  We forget.  Something about endlessly postponing things into the future where nobody’ll ever get at them.

“Future dump,” she said.  And then I laughed and said, “Or it could be a sign.  ‘Site of Future Dump’.”  We roared.

The saw guys are back here somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood, not sure exactly where.  It’s just before sundown.  Saw saw.  Gotta get it cut before dark, whatever it is.

October is a storied month and we’ll be reading some of those stories in the days ahead.  I hope you’ll join us.

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