10. drive an antique car (31x31)

There were MANY antique cars in Old Saybrook, CT this week. They all gathered on Main Street to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of a bridge spanning the Connecticut River between Old Saybrook and Old Lyme. It was quite a to-do on Wednesday. There were 25 cars built before 1935, and then a hundred more built between 1935 and 1965, all part of the parade put together by the Old Saybrook Historical Society (which is rumored to be fairly stodgy). The Fenwick neighborhood decided to enter five cars as a group, similar to the 1911 parade where five (of the 17 cars in the entire town of Old Saybrook) came from Fenwick. We all dressed in white and Mart made everyone blueberry pancakes to start off a wonderful day.

Now, we had five cars, we would need five drivers who knew how to drive these antiques. Mart invited her buddy Michael Beaudette to be a driver. He drove up in a 1967 Corvette and I KNEW that was the antique car I wanted to drive.


Mr. Beaudette did not drive the Corvette in the parade, instead he drove Marlene Dietrich's Packard (with a golden cigarette lighter). Rocky and Cricket drove her 1940 Ford Woody at the head of the parade. While we were drooling over each others' cars waiting for the parade to start rolling, Channel 3 news walked up to Cricket in the car and began interviewing her for the evening news!

The parade shut down I-95 North for about 30 minutes while we all drove across, we stopped in Old Lyme shortly and the got back on I-95 going south and parked down at the Dine & Dock. After lunch Mr. Beaudette let me drive his car. I understand that it's nearly sacrilegious to drive a car like that '67 Corvette in first gear and only around the block, but man-oh-man, I nearly inked due to excitement. The clutch was heavy and took some weight to get the pedal to the floor. I stalled about four times trying to get out of the driveway (uphill and on the grass). the engine rumbled like a jungle cat, it wasn't steady like a diesel. the steering wheel was narrow with a wide diameter. The tachometer was to the right of the speedometer (and I felt like such an idiot saying, the engine only goes 60 miles per hour? doh!), opposite to the arrangement in my dinky little Mazda 3. The seat belts were like those on an airplane, low across the hips and no upperbody protection. no roll-bar. no air bags. and all that muscle waiting to be flexed. yes, please.