This may be lengthy post.
I haven't been to a car show in about 6 years and the one previous to that one about 15 years ago, even though car shows and drag strips were a big part of my families life for about 15-20 years. I had built a couple of street rods in my earlier years and did quite a bit of work on others from local people and was really how my side business started and got kicked off back in the early to mid 90's. I put my 1940 Chevy coupe street rod into storage in 2002 right after my dad passed away in July of 2002. It went up on blocks and covered and it never saw the light of day until spring 2006. When my dad passed in July of 2002 I completely lost interest in street rods/musclecars. I really lost interest in a lot of things but kept my hands busy by playing with sand quads, sand rails and snowmobiles but just enough to keep my mind off of other things.
In 2006, after moping around for several years I pulled my head out of my *** and thought I would get the street rod back out and show it a little and put it down the strip some more. Well that didn't last long as I put it in two shows in 2006 is all. I entered it in Cache Valley Cruise-In at Logan, UT over the 4th of July weekend and then again in Peach Days in Brigham City, UT. Those are two of the largest car shows in our immediate area each year. The car did well and we got a couple more trophies but after Peach Days in 2006 I decided to just sell the street rod as it had completely lost it's appeal and didn't mean the same with my dad gone, although I thought maybe I could rekindle the spark when I got it out of storage earlier that year. I sold my coupe, all of the race parts and brushed street rods off of my sleeves forever, so I thought.
This past Friday night we had a wedding to attend as I had a nephew get married that we had thrown a tool shower for several weeks ago in our back yard. While we were sitting there waiting for the wedding to start my son and DIL had invited my wife and I to go to Peach Days Car Show in Brigham City the next day. To be honest, I was looking for an excuse not to go but I saw the stars in my DIL's eyes and my son was excited to go look at cars. My wife without hesitation eagerly said "sure, we'd love to go. Wouldn't we?" as she stared at me. I agreed and that we would pick them up in the morning.
Saturday morning I was sitting on the deck enjoying my coffee just before leaving to pick up our kids and the sky opened up and it started pouring rain. It was so nice sitting and watching it rain then the wife came out and said it was time to leave. I told her I had a few things I should do in the shop and with the rain I was going to text our son and tell him we weren't going to go. She said "the hell you are, we are going to pick them up. The rain will stop by the time we get there."
As we arrived in Brigham City, it did in fact stop raining and was just a bit overcast but comfortable and a nice start to the day. We were walking towards the park and just passed the food court/food truck row and began approaching the first row which consisted of trucks lined down both sides of the street. My son was drawn to a couple of lifted 4wd trucks and I headed right for a bad *** bright red 1972 shortbed Chevy truck with a lot of bright work and sitting nicely on a set of 16/18 front/rear wheels with an awesome stance. My son immediately stated my tastes haven't changed and he knew which truck I would immediately head towards. He even mentioned that it was nearly identical to the second "shop truck" that we built other than the year. My DIL asked about what a "shop truck" was? My son was explaining about our shop trucks that we used to run parts and daily drive to support our speed shop years ago.
As we walked past the truck section my eyes were drawn to the back end of a bright yellow coupe. As we walked a bit closer I stopped and stared at it and my wife, DIL and son walked up beside me. My son pointed to it and said "hey, we built that car." My DIL had a peculiar look on her face like she didn't know if he was joking, serious or what. My wife gasped and said "I recognize that car." About that time a familiar woman's face was wiping the car down on the opposite side and looked up and grinned and said "well Mike, how are you?" It was my good friend's wife who was detailing the car. I then heard a familiar voice from my friend whom I had known and done quite a bit of work for a lifetime ago. As I approached where he was standing I saw the bright red '57 on the other side of the coupe in which I had also done some work on. I stood there while my friend was talking to a couple of people and as he looked up and saw me, he grinned and came right over to me. He was talking to a friend of his and started pointing to the cars and explaining to him how I had built the coupe and did quite a bit of work to the '57 many years ago.
As we were talking and reminiscing it was so good to see my old friend and talk cars again. He said "last time I called you told me that you had given up working on street rods and had shifted to sand rails." I remembered that phone call around 2008 and I hadn't heard from him again. He said he tried calling me a few years ago about another project but my phone was disconnected as he wanted to know if I would do a few small projects for him but couldn't get in touch with me. I explained that we had moved in 2016 and got rid of our old phone number and land line. We continued talking for another 45-minutes or so and before leaving exchanged contact information.
I must admit, it was somewhat of an emotional reunion and to some extent an energizing one. In all of the excitement we walked away and I completely forgot to take any pictures of the coupe or the '57. While we were driving home I commented to the wife we had no pictures from the day. Don't know what I was thinking.
Here are a couple of pictures of the 1936 coupe the day he was picking up the car from our old home and shop. This would have been in early 2000. The car still looks nearly as good today as it did 20 years ago with only a couple of very minor scratches and scrapes.
Thanks for letting me ramble.
She doesn't find the humor in that.
