Bear with me, a short story here. Another warm summer Sunday. Ninety degrees, my phone informs me. I turn the ringer on silent, tuck it in my backpack. Load up the small humidor I carry in the car, grab shades and a spare tee shirt; if the phone wasn’t lying, I’ll need a dry shirt later. Kiss the cat and crate the dog, head to the garage. Slap the plastic remote control on the wall, morning daylight sneaks in at the bottom gradually highlighting the wide white-wall tires from the tread up to a shiny hubcap. Rattle the keys, find the brass one. Trunk latched shut after I tuck in the towing cables (teardrop ain’t joining us today), slide my stout behind onto the bench seat. The cool vinyl is comfortable, if only for now. All windows down, tap the gas. Key in, crank it. She sputters at first, cold and resting for nearly a week. Crank again, that Edelbrock does her thing. With a near-deafening roar, that three-hundred and seventy seven cubic inches wakes the dead, the rapp of the exhaust echoing in the garage. A few seconds later, tap the gas. Choke opening, she calms down a bit. I strap across my belt and clasp the chrome airline-style buckle that will be a hundred degrees in the sun later, yet I don’t mind in the least. Right now, it’s cool and tactile. Its satisfying “click” is a sharp, echoing noise. Tap the gas, the settles into a smooth and almost subtle idle. 

Backing out I make certain not to clip the ’57 Buick parked outside, but the ’51 Plymouth has very round and manageable proportions. It is no small car compared to the fisher-price kiddie cars zipping down freeways now, but in her day she was shadowed by Desotos with eight-foot-long hoods and Cadillacs that seated more than a full Italian family. On the street the old girl shifts into gear with a lurch that tells me I’ve got a lot of torque under my toes, should I need it. The morning had me up early and tuning the distributor, new springs and timing gave her a bit of an excited step and I’m liking the sound out of the glasspacks. We amble down the road, stop for gas. Fill her up with premium, she takes about a dozen gallons. In bay area prices, that’s about a firstborn or the left kidney… but I don’t even look at the price. Today, I don’t care.

The morning is cool and overcast. Surprisingly so, for mid-July, but not in consideration of the bay’s notoriety for needing ‘layers’. All I need is this tee shirt with a haunted T-bucket under a full moon, complimented by a flight of bats in the background. It’s my favorite car shirt, to be honest. The freeway is lightly busy, I don’t care. I head east, outta the bay. Making tracks and good time, I can feel the tune of the Pertronix flame-thrower dizzy spitting her wicked fire through those .050 gapped plugs. I skinned a tire around a curb minutes prior, the tells are there… she’s needing some real open road. 

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We arrive in twenty to the causeway and bridge, heading into marshlands and then the delta. The Sacramento delta is a fascinating place, history abounds in shipping and farming. Ships used to head upstream to stock and supply the weary faces of the gold rush, hoping to turn their luck in the next riverbed up north. Irrigation brought farming to the Solano, Yolo and Sacramento counties; with it, came thousands upon thousands of immigrant farm workers and the families that build the Sacramento valley’s legacy of agriculture. They have a museum for it downtown, it’s delightful. I digress. Here, now, my mild small block launches this little black bean down the levees and winding roads that trace the path of the river. I pass a small town that is tired and a bit decrepit, but folks wave and smile as I pass. Hospitality doesn’t die when the economy fades, no matter what bitter city folk tell you.

A short pit-stop at a farmers’ market has my arms full of produce, some surprisingly fresh peaches and apples. I grab a bag of candy for my little lady, only her favorites. Everything in the building is local and fresh, as I’m checking out there is a woman rolling in a cart of pies; the boxes are plain and brown, but no matter. The steam escaping their flaps tells me these are the freshest pies you can get. No microwave necessary. Watching my beltline a bit, I put the thought of pie out of my head. Maybe next week. Back to the ride, she’s still cool and comfortable; the skies haven’t cleared yet, but I see it on the horizon. It’s going to be a hot one. We get back on the levees, heading toward Sacramento. A few small fruit stands pass, it’s nothing special and I’ve just bought my fill. For a moment I am stuck behind a small sedan who seems not to trust the winding road, they hug the shoulder and roll 5 under the limit. Politely, though, they see an opening and wave me ahead. Kicking the ’51 down to low gear, she jumps like a startled cat and blasts up the road. I gotta mind the steering, it’s 67 years old and not as tight as I’d like. Maybe I’ll fix that soon. We come to my little town of Walnut Grove, perhaps not my own town but hopefully soon to be. I’m looking to escape the immediate bay area, and this small and somber town seems to be calling me. I pull up to the ice cream parlor, a place that’s been a diner in that town for nearly a century. Ordering a sadwich, I find I’m not specific enough with the gal at the counter; I get bread, meat, mustard. None of the fixings. Looking to my paunch, I decide to let it be and enjoy. Not bad, maybe Boar’s Head deli stuff. I’ve had worse. 

I get a few folks stopping by to inspect the old girl out front, and their smiles are shared by myself. I forget the blandness of the sandwich, tossing the last few bites. It’s getting warm and I’m missing the road already. A few kids behind me are having little battles with the two-inch plastic sample spoons, and I nod to them as I leave. One of them loved my car, he waved me off as I fired her up to depart. A bit of cool delta breeze fluttered in my window and I put on the shades. Heading up the road with nearly a full tank, the day felt damn good. Passing a couple more dry, dilapidated towns I simply putter on down the road as a few big trucks pass me in haste. Nobody’s got time anymore. Rolling down the East levee, I look ahead at the bridges and treeline. My eye catches a flicker, then a clearer pulse of light. Emergency lights, on the west side of the river at the bridge. A few dozen yards closer and I am slowing down, I see a Coast Guard boat in the water with blue lamps blazing. I roll to a stop, and ahead along the sides of the road are some spectators. “Typical”, my first response. Then I realize, this is the middle-of-nowheresville and these folks might be a bit more than rubberneckers. I see my opening, and idle the old rod to a stop in a spot on the roadside between a few other cars. Looking now at the people more than the scene, I see farmers. No tourists, but local folk. Yes, you can tell. Walking across the street, I notice an older Mexican man with two younger men, leaning on their car. I come up and inquire about what the scene across the river was; at this point, I can see another CG boat in the water North of the bridge, and a tow truck on the adjacent levee. CHP had the northbound lane blocked for maybe a hundred yards from the bridge going North. 

The man informed me that a car had gone off the road. I had already suspected as much, but the confirmation was sad to hear. Still, never seeing a car hauled from the water I figured I’d post up and see what I could see. I noticed some folks pacing about a bit, a man in a blue tee shirt walking back and forth talking to some other people who appeared to be there together. In this time, a few folks had come to talk about the car, we shared hobbies; one nice guy on his harley shared his tribulations with his vintage BMW, another old couple told me of their rare Canadian ’48 Pontiac they’d had for some time. Apparently, it was a rebadged Chevy (all the Big Three did this in Canada for decades). Those folks mentioned that the man in the blue shirt was a relative of the sunken car’s driver, purported to be missing since two days prior. That sank a pit into my stomach, the sort which knot that ties itself up at the arrival of bad news. 

I spoke with the various locals a bit more, then saw my opportunity; I stepped over to the man in the blue shirt, and offered that I’d heard whisper that he may have a family member involved in the car’s situation. We exchanged names. He explained the uncomfortable truth. His wife’s sister had been traveling the road as she does every weekend, Friday two nights prior. She’d not arrived at her destination, instead became out of contact completely. Apparently, the only reason the car was located was the lucky fact that rental car companies use waterproof GPS units in their fleet. Something like an airline’s ‘black box’. I knew the news was likely bad. The man seemed calm and collected about it, but we (he, myself and a that sweet old couple) discussed the various scenarios that could lead to his sister-in-law being alive and well. He clearly appreciated the positive thought, nobody needs hard truths in his situation. Least of all from rubberneckers. I told him I’d been around a bit, seen a lot of bad scenes. I offered that the CHP stationed on the rescue side might allow his family to be present on the closer side; he explained the very kind officer had already offered, but my new friend felt it best that his family keep a distance knowing the potential tragedy that awaited on the other end of that tow line. He started to share a bit of how he had been an anchor in many of his family’s stormy seas. His gaze at the river saddened me deeply, and I saw this man surely knew loss.

In a moment, he turned the conversation to my old car which we were leaning against. He told me of his uncle’s project, a ’49 shoebox ford that had a potent little flathead ford motor and was apparently quite a car. We talked with the old folks about their Pontiac, and discussed all the wild things under my now-open hood. He smiled, and my only thought was in the moment, about the iron and chrome. It was a short, but nice bonding with people who enjoyed some of the relics, old things deserving the attention to be made anew. I realized in that moment, that it was simply a lovely distraction from the difficult and damned unfortunate moments that nobody can ever really escape forever. Life is hard, and full of loss. Eventually, all is lost. That’s inevitable. The hours and minutes we spend before then, don’t always define what we are made of but they certainly help us carve out a more enjoyable path through the thicket of life’s thorns. Motoring is the most attainable escape that can be both a spiritual and physical escape… and the love of old rolling art spans any age, race or creed.

I gave this man and his family my most sincere regards, I wished him well and hoped for better news. He was a man I’d likely never have met in my days, but I saw the pain in his eyes and the burden his family was carrying; those moments will be with me the rest of my travels. Feeling now rather guilty for wanting to witness the sunken car’s retrieval, in light of the heavy reality waiting below that river’s surface, I recused myself and bid farewell those local folks who were there to support more than to witness. Firing up the old motor, I made my way slowly and a bit somberly toward nowhere. It was not my wish nor my place to witness any more pain that day, and I choose not to know the end of the story. Perhaps someday I’ll share another dusty roadside with that good man. I simply hope for the best, and rumble down that road.