Tag Archives: Forest Park Car Show

Beware of Hootie Pie

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1956 Ford F100 Hood/Grill

1956 Ford F100 Hood/Grill

Cassandra: Beware of Hootie Pie.
Sonia: Who?
Cassandra: I don’t know. Just beware.
Vanya: Hootie Pie. We need to keep a small notebook nearby and write all these things down, for your sanity hearing later.
Sonia: Hootie Pie. Is that a first name, “Hootie Pie”? Or is “Hootie” the first name, and “Pie” the last name?
Vanya: Or maybe Hootie Pie is a pie. And you can order it at a restaurant.
Cassandra: I don’t know what Hootie Pie is. I just know you must beware it.
– “Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike”

We biked both days, enjoying spring in all its glory. There are lots of wading water fowl and flowers, lots of flowers everywhere. Today’s ride centered on the annual Easter Day Forest Park car show. The upper Muny lot is undergoing repaving so the classic car portion of this dueling car show had spilled out on to the park’s roads, making the usual congestion for this event unusually bad. We got a late start, so when we finally made it to the lower Muny lot and the custom car portion of the show, a lot of the entrants were already driving off. Part of the reason that we were late is that we took Dave out to brunch at the Southwest Diner. Our timing was excellent, because Southwest Avenue is about to be shut down for major sewer work. He left for Purdue after brunch. The other reason that we were late launching is because I am refinishing the floors in our newly painted rooms. The dining room is done and tomorrow night I’ll do the rest of it.

The final reason that we were not at the car show earlier is that my lovely bride is not the fastest person off the mark. She has lots of the things that she needs to do, before she is ready to ride. I on the other hand, trained from many years of uh-oh-dark-thirty launches before work, can be ready to roll in fifteen minutes or less. Plus, I am not a patient man. Fortunately, my wife is abundantly patient with me. Generally, she just sluffs it off, whenever I try to press her buttons. I like pressing buttons. I do it for a living. I’m a real life George Jetson, working at a real life Spacely Sprockets.

There are three busy streets that we must cross on our way into the park and on our way back home. Each intersection has a walk light. For years, the walk light buttons offered no feedback. They very well may have been nothing more than placebo buttons. The new buttons offer a beep when pressed. When pressed immediately again the beep is muted and if pressed once again there is no beep. You have to wait a while, before you can get another beep. I enjoy this game, while Anne finds it just childish and annoying. While in DC, the walk signals there said, “Wait!” and would repeat unendingly. This was great fun/annoyance.

Somehow, I got the earwig, “Beware of Hootie Pie”, stuck in my head. I think that Anne might had said it once this morning or last. It was from Friday’s play. Cassandra, the maid, channeling her Greek namesake offers this warning repeatedly too, I might add. It turns out that Hootie Pie is Masha’s agent, the B-list sister and is urging her to sell the home where her two siblings still live. Like the walk light buttons, I’ve been repeating this phrase all day too.

Sunrise Services

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Easter morning, I got up early, and attended sunrise services at the church of the spoken wheel. I biked in the Park. The chance of rain on Sunday was 100%, but in the morning the rain held off and there were even fleeting glimpses of sunshine through the clouds. Touring the Park, I got 16 miles.

It being Easter Sunday, the Saint Louis chapter of the horseless carriage society was holding their annual car show in the Park. This year was the 50th anniversary of this show. In truth it is two shows in one. On the upper Muny lot, the classic cars convene, while on the lower Muny lot, the modified cars, the so-called hot rods, can be found. The picture with this post is of one of these lower lot hot rods. On this gray day, even its orange paint job looks muted.

Since I had biked to the Park, I had a bicycle, which caused some of the car owners no end of concern. I was cautioned to be careful several times. So, I took to locking up this unruly beast and touring the car show on foot. This seemed to make the car owners happier, but also increased my geek factor.

On my way out, I encountered a couple backing out a 1963 Chrysler Turbine Car. The man was backing it out of a covered car carrier. It made the distinctive whine of a jet engine. He backed it up about 100’, but when he went to put it into drive, the engine died, again with the distinctive fading whine of a jet engine shutting down. The couple pushed it back towards the trailer, eschewing my offer of help. They pushed it close enough and then the man busied himself with the trailer’s winch. They planned to display it where it sat and then winch it to safety, when the rain came. I noticed that the truck hauling the trailer was a county parks and recreation vehicle, but that didn’t mean anything to me until later. I Googled the car and discovered that the Saint Louis Museum of Transportation owns one of the few remaining examples of this car, Chrysler owns the rest. Here is the Wiki page on this car, interesting reading.

On Saturday night, Chris and Sandi organized a dinner party at the Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood. There were about twenty-five of us in attendance, mostly Team Kaldi’s members. Sandi and Chris were celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary and Chris was also celebrating his 50th birthday. The party was organized as a “beer dinner”. Not too surprising, since the Bottleworks is a brewery.  The dinner offered a tasting menu, with six or more courses. The items offered were ones not usually found on the Bottleworks’ menu and each course was paired with a different beer. The food was good, the company was great and the beer wasn’t too bad either. 😆 Anne and I both had a good time and enjoyed celebrating Chris and Sandi’s milestones.