My idea of a hot car is one that goes from zero to sixty – degrees – in under fifteen minutes. Even when I plunk down my two dollars for a twenty million dollar fantasy, a dream car is usually last on the list. My automotive apathy, however, met its match when I married a classic car junkie.
Not content to merely thumb through car magazines, the Big Guy lives for car shows. He’s successfully passed his love of all things automotive on to our two boys which means any car show or antique car museum in a 60 mile radius shows up on our weekend to do list. That’s why it’s hardly surprising that we’ve found ourselves speeding down route 22 in New York in the driving rain on what would normally be a lazy Sunday afternoon.
The rain should stop. This antique car show is at the studio and mansion of the man who sculpted the Lincoln memorial. Despite the rain and the fact that my fantasy to do list still doesn’t include finding another car show, I’m looking forward to the afternoon. It’s not the gourmet lunch or the elegant display of painstakingly restored cars that will make the day for me, however.
As with past shows – elegant or rustic – I know I’ll be focused, not on the cars but on the boys. My day will be spent snapping one photo after another as the Big Guy hoists six-year-old Thing2 up to examine the brass lights on a shiny Model T. I’ll try to surreptitiously capture twelve-year-old Thing1’s lanky form bending over to study a curvy dashboard through the window of an antique Mercedes. And, at some point in the day, when they’ve dropped their guards and their games and the three of them are smiling, comparing notes and fantasies, I’ll make another, permanently mental image of my three boys being boys on a lazy Sunday afternoon.