Classic Car Show

Red Antiques on Display

I really didn’t have any plans to boogie on over to Kahala Mall yesterday, but when the cable connection stopped working in our area, I couldn’t update my blogs, or watch my favorite shows on TV. I was restless and needed to do something.

What I did was read my Kindle … early. Which means I finished early. Which means I had some time to read a couple of stories more thoroughly in the morning paper. Which means I caught something I’d missed.

Kahala Mall was having a “Classic Car Show” that began last week and was going to end real soon. What I wanted to know was, would the classic cars still be on display Monday when I wanted to go. 

1965 Shelby Cobra

But there was no further information in the story. The cable was out and I couldn’t check on the Internet via my computer because I have a cable modem and … (Did I say this already?) the cable was out.

*LIGHT BULB ON!* Hey, I thought, I can check it on my Droid. I KNEW there was a good reason why I got one of them fancy dancy smart phones. So I checked. Bad news … the cars were going to burn rubber outta there before Monday. If I wanted to see them, I’d need to go right away.

Sunday was going to be out of the question because I had a Father’s Day lunch to go to.

You know me. I jumped in the car and went right away.

Only … I didn’t get there right away. 

Roadster Convertible "Up on the Rooooof"

The transportation people were working on the freeway and had closed two lanes while they drilled holes and filled them with cement. Cross my heart and hope to die, that’s what they were doing. The weird thing is, first they closed the left lane, then opened it and closed the center lane, then closed the shoulder, then closed the two center lanes.

Well, I got past that mess at a snail’s pace, finally hitting the clear about a half-mile from the Kahala Mall turnoff. Smack dab into a traffic jam.

Apparently, everybody and his father decided to go to Kahala Mall too. I drove around for a long time before I finally found a parking space as far away from the mall as one could possibly get without actually leaving the mall parking lot. I mean, it was tough. If a car hadn’t turned its reverse lights on as I was approaching it, I’d never have gotten a space. 

1969 Yenko

When I got inside the mall, I discovered why. There were about a half-dozen of the cars on display inside. The rest, I found out, were on the top floor of the parking garage – more than 100 of them. No wonder there wasn’t any parking to be had.

As it turns out, it was worth it. Holy moly, those cars were beautiful. And it was interesting to watch the people there. The men outnumbered the women 2 to 1, and the kids 3 to 1. The kids looked bored and ran around the place. The women walked around with their arms crossed, glancing to the left and right, nodding and generally exhibiting a “ho hum, here we go again” attitude.

Old Refurbished Cars Galore

The men, however, were gawking at the cars, taking pictures, peering under hoods, engaging the owners in deep conversations, sometimes gesticulating wildly with their hands. I even saw one spectator trying to buy one of the cars, but the owner just stood there, arms crossed, shaking his head.

We are all cowboys at heart, aren’t we? Us men. Only we don’t have horses any more. We have cars. And we like to show them off after we make them nice and smooth and shiny.

Ahhh, it was a good day after all.