[This is the second of a three-part story on my journey to Hershey and
my trip around the World's Biggest Automotive Swap Meet. Kind of long,
and not always Forward Look-related. Feel free to click DELETE now if
you'd like. And thanks to Ed Janzen, wherever you are...]
HERSHEY
Day Two: From Here to Mudternity
Well, hello all you boys & girls out there in email land... When we last
left our hero, he was slogging through the mud back to his car. We'll
start again from there. Yes, yes, yes, I know that's technically Day
One, but I didn't feel like writing anymore yesterday, but I'm the one
writing this so you'll just have to deal with it.
Sorry.
Still a little cranky from the mud.
Anyway, I made it back to my car around 4PM. That's way too early to go
to sleep, even though I was exhausted. What do you do at a car show, in
the rain, in the middle of nowhere, when the only place you have to go
is your car? The batteries in my giant 2.2" portable color TV were
dead. Yuck. I tired of listening to the radio after about 30 minutes,
so I turned to a few of the magazines that I had picked up (that are on
sale now on eBay, by the way!), and read the articles that interested
me. Then I read the articles that didn't interest me. Then I read the
letters to the editor. Then the ads. The classifieds. The ads again.
I checked all of the page numbers to make sure they were all there.
I'd killed an hour. I'd try to sleep.
Now, I mentioned that my Chevy was much better to sleep in. It has a
number of field mods (those of you who've been in the service know field
mods; they're in-the-field modifications of equipment to better serve a
given purpose) that make life in the car easier. First, I cotter-pinned
the front seat backs so they could be removed and wedged in the front
footwells. Second, the rear seat back was also on pins to allow for
easy removal and access to the trunk from the inside of the car. The
seats can then be arranged to form a lumpy, but relatively flat bed
area. I could sit my 2.2" color TV on the dash, and relax in comfort.
But like I said, the Mercury isn't as comfortable as my Chevy. The
seats go back to a maximum of a 30 degree angle. Not much for comfort,
but workable. I even managed to get about 3 hours of sleep.
But when I woke up, I realized that my shoes and jeans were still
soaked. Climbing into wet and muddy gear isn't the best way to start
your day, so I set off in search of a laundramat. This is not an easy
thing to find in Hershey, but Penn State's Hershey Medical Center is
right nearby, and where there are students, there are washers & dryers.
Okay, so after I broke in the dorms, I realized that the machines took
quarters: 3 for the washer, 2 for the dryer. I had 3 quarters total.
Yes, yes, I managed to trick the machines using a plastic bag and got my
quarters back and managed to do my laundry [Note: I'll only pass on the
secret to this trick in person, so don't ask! =) ]. Clothes are dry,
but Dave is tired again.
I tried smoozing this girl who was in there washing her clothes,
explaining that I could really use a place to sleep. Now I don't know,
maybe I'm losing my charm. Maybe she wasn't attracted to muddy guys
wearing only boxers who hang out in college dorm laundries. Either way,
she declined my request.
I got all of my clothes out of the drier before Campus Security got
there, at least.
So, back to the car, back to the campground, and back to sleep.
Day Two:
I woke up at 7:30, and mercifully, the rain had stopped at least for a
little while. I got dressed, ate breakfast and headed off for the
meet. When I got there, vendors were just setting up, and the haunting
music of Patsy Cline drifted quietly, softly through the air, seemingly
from nowhere (and yet everywhere) at once. One thing for sure, is that
Patsy is at every swap meet. A voice from the past calling out to the
people who are desperately trying to relive it.
Now, one of the things I love most about shows is meeting the different
types of people who attend them. Basically, Old Car Parts Swap Meets
are male activity. Although women go too, they mostly tag along with
the guy who wants to go. Sometimes they come along to "show their
stuff" since they know they'll get attention in an all-male activity.
Trust me. They do. Others go to feed their Beanie Baby addictions.
And the rest come to keep their husbands from trading their house for an
NOS set of '57 Fury anodized aluminum inserts.
The guys can be divided into many more categories. There is the macho
type who brings along a friend to show off to. No matter what the item,
(or the car), he knows all about it, and -knows- it's overpriced, too
worn, too rusty or too whatever. He buys nothing while his friend is
around. He may be back later "by himself" if he really needs the item
(and if it's still available).
Then there's the guy who wants only '28 Whippet parts, and it says so on
the sandwich board on his back. Nevertheless, he looks at many items
all day and asks a lot of questions. However, he never buys anything.
He's just shopping.
Then there's the guy who's just there to socialize. He's been a club
member for years and knows everyone, knows every car in the club and its
history, and never sees what you have to offer. His eyes are on meeting
new people and offering them a friendly hand. No harm in that, I
guess. I for one fall into this category. I gave away about 300 of the
little FLML fliers over the course of the weekend, as an example, and
looked more for conversation than for parts...
And then there's the guy who will look at all of the Chevy stuff, box by
box, and when the vendor asks if there's anything in particular that
he's looking for, he'll say no -- he's a Ford man. He'll browse for 4
hours in the Lutty's Chevy Warehouse tent looking for Ford parts. I
don't understand these guys at all.
Another classic type is the guy who looks over all of the '55 Chevy
stuff, but not very closely. His wife is cool. When asked if there's
anything he's looking for, he says no. He has a Concours-quality '55
with everything on it. His wife pipes up that they've won best of show
in every event they've ever entered, and they've turned down offers of
$100,000 on the car. Why they'll dig through boxes of used and rusty
'55 parts is beyond me. They'll drift away cooly in their matching
embroidered satin jackets with "Chuck & Sheila's Cool '55" on the back,
without even as much as a goodbye nod.
A rare type, the Sad Sack of the swap meet world, is the guy who just
bought a '54 Something-Or-Other and needs EVERYTHING. He's also the
poorest guy in the place. He asks for this and for that, and takes the
cheapest, rustiest, part that will suffice. He pays for his treasures
in all crumpled $1 bills.
Then there's the man who comes primarily to socialize with his old car
cronies, but can't tell his wife this. He has a number of old cars, all
of which he "is going to restore someday" (although his wife wonders out
loud when all of this is going to happen since he is getting older). He
is probably driving an old car himself at club functions, but not to the
swap meet because it's too far from home. His wife wants to know why he
has to go to the swap meet when he's been to numerous others in the
local area. Well, under pressure, he expalins that he needs part "X".
She asks what exactly part "X" is. He's vague and says it's difficult
to explain. We all know old car men are the strong silent type. We
don't explain none too good. Well, she persists and he tries to explain
again, more clearly, and she scrambles around for a piece of paper to
write it down on. Surprise! She's going with him! At the swap meet,
he knows no one, and she knows no one. This puts her into an awkward
situation; she has nothing to do but look for part "X". Now she's the
hunter, going from table to table looking for some imaginary part that
the man just dreamed up as an excuse to get away for a few hours. Now
they're both trapped on a chrome and rust snipe hunt.
Finally, there's the bikers. Bikers are always wandering around,
seemingly confused that there's so many CAR parts around the meet. They
have a kind of lost look until they run into the obligatory leather
goods or native american jewelry vendor. They'll linger there for a
while comparing tatoos or talking about last year's Sturgis, and then
leave their pocket of safety and wander back into the crowd, looking for
their next Warm, Well-Lighted Place. I think they just like being in
crowds (althought they seem somehow threatened by them, too), and most
swap meets kind of strike me as a Woodstock-type-crowd, sans bands...
Well, Hershey and Woodstock did have one thing in common this year.
Loads of mud. Mud EVERYWHERE. And it was shoe-sucker mud; the kind
that threatens to strip you of your shoes with every lifting step.
Nonetheless, I mucked around for 10 hours, buying what struck my fancy,
and trying to socialize the best I could.
The rain didn't make that very easy. Every vendor seemed like either
Walter Matthau or Jack Lemmon starring in "GRUMPY OLD MEN GO TO
HERSHEY". Oh well, I kept myself entertained anyway, and picked up a
few things here and there. Ate lunch. Slopped around through more
mud. Handed out wet FLML fliers to wet people. Bought wet things with
wet money.
Did I mention that it rained a lot? I think maybe I did. One vendor
brought a few laughs by placing a vintage "SLOW, NO WAKE" sign in front
of the 12" deep puddle blocking his entire booth. Another with a
cardboard sign reading "YOUR WET MONEY GLADLY XCHANGED FOR OUR CLEAN
DUST-FREE PARTZ". There was some sense of humor, but not much. Most
just seemed to be waiting out the week waiting to escape.
Some tried to escape early. It was a challenge. The PA system
announced that tows out of the muck were on a first-come, first towed
basis. Watching a 40 year old tractor pulling a 30 year old truck
pulling a 20 year old trailer loaded with 80 year old parts is quite a
scene. Watching the 40 year old tractor dig itself a foot deep into the
mud and get stuck is even more of a scene.
I was exhausted, wet and muddy again. I managed to make it through to
6:30, and decided I could make it back to the car. Maybe.
On the way out, I ran into a booth with yet another type often found at
swap meets. The anti-government, reactionary conservative militia
types. My type of crowd! They were having a conversation about Bill
Clinton, so I joined in and threw them some new info. Hating Bill
Clinton and (Arkansans governemt workers in general) is an old hobby of
mine since 1990, when on a trip through Arkansas, I ran into some of
their State's Finest, who didn't like the looks of the four foot tall
Steal-Your-Face, Ace of Spades on my hood, and tried to give me a ticket
for speeding (which was total BS)... the ticket was payable only in
CASH, on the SPOT, at that MOMENT. You know the type.
But back to Hershey. I talked with the Militia types for a while, and
noticed an older man that wandered in with a '55 Dodge hat. I gave him
one of the FLML fliers, telling him how he could meet other owners
online. He slapped the flier back in my hands like he had been stung.
"Uh-uh! NOOOO way! Once you get them innernets in your house," [ them
innernets? ] , "the gub'ment can SEE IN and they know all about you and
the IRS will take your farm away. NOOOO way! You get away from me!
You and them inrernets can go straight to HELL! GO AWAY! GO AWAY! GO
TO HELL!"
I made a mental note to add "Crazy, paranoid old man" to my list of Swap
Meet types, and decided to call it a day.
***
TOMORROW: Harold Doebel's Ocean Video, & the famous AACA Fall Car Show,
and more.
Stay tuned for HERSHEY, pt.3 - DEJA GOO.
-Dave
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