16 May 2017

Portland Tranny

Portland Tranny.
The not so perfect nickname for a spring car show. 
Months ago I'd met a guy named Carl
at the local flea market,
who was eyeballing the old hot rod.
He happened to have just bought
that blue roadster pickup model,
said "here take it".
Come to find out,
He's had dozens of old hot rods, drag cars etc.

Fast forward to last week,
and he hinted of a local car show,
down at Portland Tranny.
"Get there early it's over by 11,
hundreds of cool cars!!"
I researched it online,
which was about as surprising as you'd expect
if you were going to research "Portland Tranny".
WTF people these days...
Refined to Portland Transmission...car show.
Much better for my interests...
Whew.
Saturday arrives.
I woke up "get to work" early,
but peering outside...
Rain, rain go away!
I'd rather play my tank game.
Yea this is my crutch,
or my weakness.
Hey I don't have a TV up here!!
No movies or tv shows in 6 months!
To me it's a super fun and challenging game,
driving a realistic slowish tank around,
shooting other real-time players doing the same thing.
Look it up,
it's a free game for iPads!
"World of Tanks Blitz"
The huge positive,
is it keeps me from drinking late at night.
I kinda suck at winning with a buzz,
and it's very statistic based.
By 930,
the rain wasn't letting up.
Gotta make or break here.
Driving in the rain is a blast,
with the proper gear.
That could be a nice jacket,
or a garbage bag with poncho holes in it.
You pick...
I passed a few hot rods that had left.
Uh oh...
Driving by the address,
the show wasn't as big as Carl had predicted,
and I passed right by the building.
It was close to 10 and raining steadily,
what'd I expect.
5 blocks away I thought F-it gotta double back.
The second run i spied the closed off side street,
and snuck up to an open spot,
on the edge of the main parking lot.

"Sneaking" late into a car show parking lot,
full of hot rodders quietly standing in the rain..
with an uncorked flathead exhaust...

Well that's like a dog squeezing out
a majestic steamy poop on a hot windless summer day.
Like flies...
A quick back story.
Remember the Portland Roadster Show article?
Well I had concurrently posted an Instagram shot,
of one of the coolest cars there,
along with a not so glowing caption,
about a 3rd brake light.

If the caption was a 34 watt light bulb.
it would have a sharp stream of water shooting at it,
and I'd be standing in the puddle underneath barefoot...

The problem with writing online chit,
is that puddle continues to grow.
The chances for doom increase.
Months later I had gotten caught,
and the owner gave up an explanation.
What was I to say.
Whoops?
At the show,
I had the chance to say something in person,
as the owner,  his son and car club (slo-poks)
were all there for my roasting.
But guess what?
We all ended up having a great time!
When I finally whipped out the camera-phone,
we were the last cars there!
Great meeting you Neil, Neil Jr, Mark, Mitch and others!
TP

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