A cruise in the past (10/10/07)

Twenty years? Had it really been twenty years?

George Reitenour, Alfred Hadley, and I stood on West Main Street at Saturday's cruise-in, all of us asking the same question.

It was late 1986 when George had come to a board meeting of the Portland Area Chamber of Commerce to tell folks about his dream.

He had this car, he said. A 1936 Studebaker Dictator coupe that he'd restored. And there was this race, he said, although it wasn't really a race but a road rally for antique and vintage vehicles from one side of America to another.

And he was looking for sponsors to try to make the dream happen.

I went home that night - a member of the board at the time - and told my wife that I thought the newspaper ought to invest a thousand dollars to name a car.

Not only that, I said, but we ought to cover this event from coast to coast, taking the readers along for George and Al's big adventure.

To her credit, she did not call the doctor.

The next morning, I called George and the wheels started turning.

The car, we decided, would be "Spirit of Jay County." While he looked for other sponsors, we'd limit ourselves to naming rights.

The next summer, in 1987, despite all arguments of good sense, I found myself flying to Anaheim, Calif., to cover the race.

(I admit that having made the decision, there was no one else who was going to get the assignment. I had to go myself, even if it mean 11 days on the road.)

The race, appropriately enough, started in Disneyland and ended in Disney World that year. It was indeed a magical kingdom event.

While George and Al drove and navigated the Studebaker respectively, I traveled in a "pace car" provided by Detroit for promotional purposes.

At Main Street U.S.A. in Disneyland, minutes before the start of the Great American Race, I met a guy by the name of Tom Kelsey, who handed me the keys to the car.

He was a photographer for the Los Angeles Times and was knocking down some mortgage payments by using two weeks of vacation time to act as the official photographer of the event.

For the next several days, we'd be together for long hours at a time. By the end of the event, our friendship was unbreakable.

Much of the rest of the event is a blur after 20 years.

I remember stopping by the Billy the Kid Museum in Tombstone, Ariz.

I remember the statue of the Madonna of the Trail in a town in New Mexico that's exactly like the same statue in Richmond, Ind.

I remember helping Kelsey get a shot that required a time exposure and two flashes in the parking lot of the Texas Rangers in Arlington.

I remember writing stories on a Tandy Radio Shack laptop computer from Strohl's in hotel room after hotel room and sending them back to The CR late at night.

I remember that my only experience with New Orleans was a hotel parking lot and a room service meal while I wrote. Kelsey later told me he'd had a great time in the French Quarter, but by then we were on our way east.

And, vividly, I remember spending a day riding in the back seat of a Packard convertible once owned by FDR as it made its way across Mississippi in the rain.

All of that came flashing back Saturday afternoon on West Main Street at the cruise-in.

I have no idea what flashed through Alfred's mind or George's, but I'm guessing it was just as vivid.

The Great American Race did things like that to people when it was at its prime.

"Spirit of Jay County" went on to run again in 1988 from Disneyland to Boston, and I was crazy enough to cover it again. "Spirit" also ran from Canada to Mexico in another event and ran again within the past year in a rally in Texas.

And Portland played host as a pit stop on the event in the 1990s, winning money for the Jay County Public Library as the best pit stop on the race.

As for the non-mechanical, human part of the equation, George and Al and I are showing our age.

George has had yet another major heart surgery and now lives in Tennessee.

Alfred, who is from Noblesville, is building a retirement cabin in Kentucky and looking forward to enjoying it.

As for me, the beard has more gray and so does the hair.

But the Studebaker? If you took a look at her on Saturday, you'd swear she hasn't aged a bit, still ready to roll off the showroom floor and take on anything the world wants to throw at her.

[[In-content Ad]]