Sights and Sounds of the Car Show

When I post about a car show it’s usually all about the cars, right? Why wouldn’t it? I mean I’m at a car show…and there’s hundreds of glistening, colorful, hoovered, shined and polished automobiles from various eras in various shapes and sizes. That most of us can’t afford.

Anyway,

I decided to make different observations. For one thing, this car show is probably exactly like the same one a year ago. I bet 90% of the cars are the same ones that were here last year.  I will admit that it does get mundane. But the baked goods are fantastic. And there’s a Subway across the street. And a flea market. You’ve seen one ’57 Chevy Bel Air you’ve seen them all (that is no diss on the ’57 Chevy Bel Air-but there had to be at least 25 of them!).

This is a small car show. There were only about 150 cars. I mean we’re talking Bath, PA here people. Population as of 2010? 2693. Yeah, and they’re all probably related somehow.

The first thing I thought was funny was that inbetween 50′s and 60′s music, the DJ played the theme to “NCIS”. That was random.

Then there were these:

Yes, there’s a dog under that blanket. He was cute though.

And this…

Another dog

Then there was this:

Oh look! A dog!

As well as….

Wow, A DOG! You don’t see too many of them at car shows!

I counted 6 all together.

Ok, enough of the canine humor…..

I’ve seen people hanging out in their cars during a show. Usually when it’s chilly or drizzling, or very hot. this guy had other ideas:

Look hard….yep, he’s napping! And oh look, guess what he’s sleeping in? A ’57 Chevy! One of the 25 that were there!

Just goes to show you how much room was in those cars! You couldn’t do that in an Acura! Or Kia!

There was an Elvis wanna be but I couldn’t grab a picture. Then the guy with the mohawk and shorts with leather jacket. I didn’t want to look too obvious that I wanted to take his picture. I mean it wasn’t because he looked good, that’s for sure. This is Bath, PA after all.

But this was the highlight of the show in my eyes. It wasn’t the ’59 Cadillac Miller Meteor Ecto-1, but someone took a Ford LTD Stationwagon and did a damn good job with it.

Sorry, but the obvious caption for this is: WHO YA GONNA CALL?!

This was this annoying little boy, about 11, who was just gaga over this car! I felt sorry for the owner because this little kid wouldn’t leave her alone!

But I had to video tape it because it was so cool!

I didn’t tape the whole thing because you get the idea. We have better things to do than listen to the Ghost Busters. You have to admit, though, it makes you start head boppin’!

But the driver side sun visor was autographed by Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man! And one other person. I couldn’t make out the name. Maybe you can. The owners were too busy talking to other people, so I didn’t bother to ask.

The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man is really just a softie….har har har…..

It also has equipment in the back. Not sure if they were original movie props, but they certainly weren’t plastic toys!

This annoyed me:

I should have known better than to wear new sneakers. And my feet were wet. And cold. Whoa is me.

It wasn’t the most exciting car show. Aside from the local weather station screwing up the weather all week, it was a nice day out of the house.

For The Love Of YouTube

And on the ninth day, God said “Let there be YouTube.”. And there was YouTube.  And God saw YouTube and said that it was good. It was very good!

Because on the eighth day, God said “Let there be video cams.”

And we all thought Facebook was a phenomenon.

In all the world of normalcy. there’s the inane.  If you have a video camera, you’re in.

I do believe alot of this was born from “Worlds Most Funniest Videos”.  They originated the popularity of people video taping their kids skiing off roofs. Dogs on surf boards. Babies blowing snot out of their noses.

(we could go back even farther and claim that Peter Funt of the original “Candid Camera” was the first to film the antics of people in formulated situations)

And it took off. I’m sure sales of video cams sky rocketed! If we can get little Jimmy to ramp off the garage roof over the fence, then we, too, can win $10,000!

I’m totally amazed that you can find anything, I mean ANY-THING on YouTube! In any language. Of people doing EVERY-THING! It’s one of the little freedoms, to a point, that humanity has left. Even very explicit videos are really public viewing. You can flag a video as “inappropriate”. But why? If it bothers you that much, just exit out of it.

I love the fact that you can rate a music video and leave a comment. Did it suck? YES, it sure did! The guy that commented after you didn’t seem to think so and just called you dickhead.

It just shows you that the world is full of random and spontaneous moments. We would never be able to experience or know what goes on in the lives of others without this. Like discovering a baby is terrified of it’s mother blowing her nose then laughs.  That 18 month old twins can communicate in baby talk. Aunt Martha isn’t exactly coordinated, so she and Uncle Lou are going for a boat ride in their new motorboat. Let’s tape the maiden voyage.  While filming the historic event for posterity, we watch as Aunt Martha struggles to get into the boat. She suddenly gets distracted by something and loses her footing as she falls backwards into the lake. There’s nothing funnier than laughing at someone else’s expense. And uploading it for over 100 thousand people to see.

We are a curious species. What compels us to try out ideas over and over again has always been in our DNA. The Wright Brothers wouldn’t have gotten as far as they did if it wasn’t for face planting a couple times while trying to get that damn airplane to fly.

There is a lot of abnormality in the world. We would never know this if it wasn’t for YouTube. We would go on day to day with just our world around us. We might see the occasional guy dressed in a tutu skateboarding down 6th Ave in New York City.  Or a guy that walks around mid town Manhattan with a cat on his head. But when we get into the environment outside our reach, whoa, step away from the meth people!  Don’t allow teenage girls any where near video cams. Hormones are a hell of thing. They take weird to a new level.

You have to love YouTube for bringing the inane and insane to our lives. In this world of despondency and global government uprisings, there’s YouTube to bring things back to perspective. That people find time between protests and rioting to pick up a video camera and tape a little bit of delirium or tenderness and share it with the world.

Go Dog, Go!

Most of you know this book from Dr. Seuss. I was read it MANY times when I was little and read it myself MANY times. Then I read it MANY times to my kids.

But this post isn’t about Dr. Seuss books. I may do one later.

I love animals. Furry kinds or party. I’ve had a cat since I can remember. I was the one that would bring the injured bird home and try to foster it in a vintage bird cage my mom had since the 50′s only to have the poor thing die. Funeral services were held, tears shed but I would move on. Until the next poor soul was found.

I would find garter snakes and put them in my beach coat pocket at our lake house and carry them around. “Can I keep him George, can I? Can I? Oh boy oh boy”. My poor parents. They were just waiting for the day I’d bring home a bear or injured possum.

My mom used to feed the racoons. Every night there was Esther and her babies and mom would give her the dinner scraps from that night. It was great watching them eat corn on the cob. She also liked to feed the deer. Dad was patient. He would diligently put deer food out every other day or so. And about a dozen would trod through the snow and eat. Mom loved it.  These were the days you could do that and not worry about encouraging the wildlife into your yard for fear of them moving in and mauling you.

As much as I would love to have animals, I don’t have the acreage or room. The most I’ve had is 4 cats. I’m down to one now and 4 chickens. They stay outside. They don’t make much noise. I had a dog for a week once. I was keeping it for someone who couldn’t have  it until another owner was found. Tigger, my cat, rarely goes outside anymore since he’s going on 9 years. I’ve always done my best to control my pets by making sure they weren’t digging in gardens to poop or clawing trees (which they never did).

My neighbors on my one side have a small Scottie dog named Webster. Barks occasionally, but only when it wants to go in after being let out to pee. Doesn’t bark at me when it’s outside with his owner while he rakes the yard. They, too, control the dog if it seems to be straying. It has occasionally sneaked out under their fence, but only when the daughter’s visiting and has brought her Scottie named Allie (not a name I would choose). Little instigator. It’s kind of amusing actually.

Now, on the OTHER side of me are newer neighbors. Not new to the area, he was brought up about a mile down the road where his mother still lives and runs their sanitation business. So he has that smugness of  “I grew up here so don’t tell me what to do”. He moved in with an elderly dog who died about 3 months later. We knew another one would probably be acquired.

We were wrong.

They acquired two.

Puppies. One black lab, one stupid white lab mix or something.

Because Nicole wanted a new dog and the owner just couldn’t decide on which one to get. So he answered BOTH ads in the paper.

He did fence in a portion of the back yard. The white lab would get out occasionally (I think Nicole would let it out just to watch the bedlam that ensued as well as the attention she would get -negative attention-but attention). I was recruited a couple times to help round up this varmit. He thought it a game and would let you get within 3 feet of him and then he’d take off, find some deer, run through some neighborhood yards and be gone. Eventually, he would come home.

One local had had enough, threatened to shoot “the dame thing” if it came into his yard and ran through his garden again. He was drunk. And it is legal to shoot a dog if it’s in your yard. Welcome to Pennsylvania.

Oh, did I mention they like to bark?

They’ll bark at EVERYTHING! Name it, they’ll bark at it.

Said neighbor has purchased one of the “No Bark” mechanisms and mounted it on one of the fence posts. It worked for about 3 days. And it only works if it’s “ON”.

Nicole turns it off. I swear this is the evil spawn child of Satan. She will be a handful when she turns 12. She’s 10.

Why said neighbor doesn’t tell evil spawn child to leave it on or beat the crap out of her is beyond me. She wants attention? I’ll give her attention!

When said neighbor leaves for work in the morning at 4am (never ceases to let us know what time he goes to work-like he’s a real man or something) he let’s the dogs out! They will bark at the sun rising or something. THEN….SHE goes to work, leaving them outside. If they don’t, they destroy the house (can you say “CAGE”?). So it’s “Free reign baby!! Whoo Hoooo…….let’s have a bark party” and they won’t shut up. You can’t go outside without being barked at. You can’t get into or out of your car without being barked at. Said neighbor has asked us if the dogs barking bothers us and we’ve said yes, but he does nothing about it.

They are no longer puppies. They’re about a year old now.

Well, my husband let him know today that it really is bothering us. He yelled at the dog, rattled the fence, yelled at the neighbor, they waved back and I haven’t heard the dogs since. You mean to tell me they can’t hear those dogs barking? I know it’s got to be one reason why the people on the other side of them are moving.  It’s going to be an interesting weekend.

Why don’t people have consideration and take responsibility or control of their animals?

 

 

Love Thy Neighbor – NOT

After living in 6 different houses during the interim of my life, I’ve come to the conclusion that neighbors will always bother me. Which is really strange because I’m a pretty giving person, laid back,  nonchalant, considerate and easy going. Maybe it’s just not me. Maybe it’s the neighbor. Neighborly etiquette. You do your best to NOT slam the car door when you come home at the butt crack of dawn. Mowing your lawn at 8am really isn’t a good idea, that’ll definitely piss someone off. Fence your dog. Nothing is more irritating than having the neighbor’s dog take a poo on your freshly mowed lawn. And we all know the stories of retaliation.

Meet Ronnie. And his ’57 Chevy. And his bitches. He would come home drunk at 2am, sit in his half restored relic, and blast the radio. Every time we hear “When A Man Loves A Woman” I swear my husband starts to twitch.  I could go on with this one….the women, the upstairs bedroom window, his ex wives….we moved.

I had a neighbor next door who was German. I’m still waiting for the Lemon Meringue Pie she said she was going to bake me…..as soon as she and her husband were finished observing (nosing is more the word) the trench we made for the above ground pool we were installing. They had a granddaughter who thought she was Liza Minnelli while driving up and down the sidewalk in her “too small for her” Power Wheels (Barbie no less).  She and her husband didn’t get along. She was calling him to come in for dinner once; he was in the backyard: “Deena iss veddy, come now!” his reply: “I’ll be right there, (and under his breath) in 10 minutes.”

Then there were the neighbors that threw a Sweet 16 party with strippers for their daughter (the strippers were guy friends of hers….a year older who popped out of a cake!).  They’ve since moved.

The neighbors on our left? They don’t do too much, except take 2 hours to mow 2/3 of an acre of land. He’s really anal, too, about his lawn. We’re in Pennsylvania of all places…you know….PENN’S WOODS! He either uses the hand mower or the tractor or BOTH. This guy is the only person I know who can make lawn mowing on a tractor a recreational leisure sport.

I can’t imagine what the neighbors think of us.