SHRUBS ON WHEELS

For the first time since immigrating to Insanity Cruz I was in town the weekend of “Woodies on the Wharf”, an eighteen year tradition of filling the Boardwalk wharf with a wide variety of classic vehicles that prominently feature real wood trim on their exteriors.

Now let me say that I have had a woody for woodies since I can’t remember when and this started out like dyin’ and goin’ to heaven without having to get all dressed up.  Then, after you have seen your umpteenth late 40’s, dark blue Ford (which, to the untrained eye, looks remarkably like the late 40’s, dark blue Pontiac right next to it…) you find yourself walking faster and choosing photo ops more slowly… I mean there were seemingly hundreds to see.

There were woodies in every style and stage of decrepitude and redemption. Some shinier than brand new and looking more like a decoupaged  novelty  than a vehicle while others looked like a “one-owner” that had been rode hard and put up wet.  The more complete the restoration the more likely there was a large photo of the “before” carcass of the car replete with tales of finding it in a back pasture with a tree growing through the floorboards, etc.

The longer you strolled the more the cars began to blend together and the more one began to eyeball the folks around you and evesdrop on conversations… the homeless guy, watching his friend get a citation of some sort, saying to the cop, “Can I get a ride in a cop car without having to going to jail?” and the cream of the motorhead comments, “The older you get the more you hire someone else to do shit.” And, “That piece of chrome under the back window is definitely not original.”


As you strolled faster and a thirst for a cold beer grew you still had to stop once in a while when something very different popped up.  A 1933 Rolls Royce Shooting Brake, the lovely and diminutive Morris Minors, an Austin hearse converted years ago to a roach coach...

And then there was the cutie below which is actually a heavily after-marketed 66 VW bug beautifully and skillfully re-invented.

We both agreed that the best ones were well loved and a little shopworn around the edges, showing that the car was still a car and not one of the family jewels only taken out to be worn to the Governor’s ball, as it were.