A Day At The Races

I was up in my parent's attic recently trying to find my old Pac-Man puppet (I've still got Ms. Pac-Man, but Pac-Man disappeared years ago. If I had a Baby Pac-Man puppet there would be child support issues.) when a small red 'No. 7 De Luxe Album For Polaroid's Swinger Camera' came tumbling out of a box of paisley patterned bell bottoms. It turned out to be an old album that my father had kept from high school right on up to when I was born. In this album were 18 pictures of cars, four pictures of his dog and one of my mother... and yet she still married him.

Here are said car pics, plus a couple of others, along with any descriptions that were included with-

"Rick's '66 Tempest"

"Natural Bridge 1969 Mercury"

"Natural Bridge '55 Chevy '57 Chevy"

"Denny's 1960 Valiant"

No, that is not your imagination... that's a drive-in movie screen there in the background. I don't know which came first, the speedway or the theater, but this was a definite case of strange bedfellows. I saw the first 'Superman' movie at that drive-in back in the '70's and mostly all I can remember of it is the roar of racing engines that played in accompaniment to the entire film. Also, I remember that Marlon Brando frightened me.

" 'Jungle Jim' Lieberman Camero Funny Car"

" 'Mountain Rat' Art Truslow Jr Nelson Co."

"454 Ci Camero A/MP"

It's some sort of secret code...

"Left 'Little Stud' (Orange) Right SS454"

"T.V. Tommy Ivo's AA/FD John Austin 'Tarzan' "

I have no idea which are the names of people and which are the names of cars...

No caption, but I think that Evil Herbie is about to eat that poor truck.

"Denny R- Driving 5-70"

There are two pictures of this 'Denny' fellow in this album, that's twice as many as there are of my mother. There's also a picture of his Valiant. I don't know any 'Denny,' but he sure seemed to rate a lot of album space for someone I'd never heard of. I asked my father if there was maybe a "Brokeback Mountain" thing going on between the two of them, but he was not in the least bit amused. He hates cowboy humor.

"Jean Before Steve"

I don't know for sure why my 8-months pregnant mother was posing for a picture out in the middle of a field somewhere, beside a trailer park but I suspect it has something to do with that totalled trailer in the background. Neither of my parents remember for sure, but I'm thinking that this is hard-to-come-by photographic evidence of the aftermath of a rare 'trailer park kaiju' rampage. Judging from the width of the footstep I'd say it was Clemzilla... that dead patch of grass behind my mother suggests the remnants of his atomic 'ter-bakky' spit.