Day 7: Sep. 16, 2005
Towin' with Bob


Prev
Next
Another good looking day and a nice view from my front door. The carved Indian, the office, and all the tepees are freshly painted. The buildings inside and out. The Indian just out. "Do it in a teepee" is gone and there are flowers and grass. No flowers in 2003 and much of the grass was growing from cracks in the pavement.
At the Steinbeck Awards Luncheon, there were plenty of folks with real cameras documenting the events on stage and my little pocket camera does a pretty poor job of that. But, in the back of the room, I did snap pictures of Dennis Karlstad getting the live webcast going with assistance from Swa Frantzen. There were plenty of awards and dignitaries, a tear triggering Michael Wallace story/speech, and a surprise guest in the person of Shirley Mills. Shirley played Ruthie Joad in "The Grapes of Wrath" and is still pretty bubbly. The two major awards of the day are the Steinbeck and the Avery. Both are given to recognize Historic 66 preservation efforts. The Steinbeck goes to a person; The Avery to a project. This year the person is photographer Shellee Graham and the project the San Bernardino Wigwam Village. I'm sleeping in an Avery Award winner. How cool is that?
Yesterday I first saw Bob Waldmire's Microbus parked a couple of tepees away. Incredibly, it first appeared today atop a tilt-bed tow truck. When I first arrived at the Authors & Artists area, there was no bus at all. Only a severely irritated artist. Bob had all the permission you could want and the authorization was posted on the bus. Even so, as the result of the ever popular "miscommunication", the bus was hauled away. "311,000 miles and its never been towed", Bob says and, to make the story even better, consider that Bob was having lunch about fifteen feet from San Bernardino's mayor when his bus was towed away. But calls were made, the city agreed to cover all expenses, there may even have been an apology or two, and, under Bob's supervision, the venerable VW was carefully returned to the ground. I assume it's only used during the Rendezvous and similar events but the San Bernardino Police Department does have their own classic vehicle and it was called to the scene. So that is how, in September of 2005, I managed a photo of a 1972 Volkswagen Microbus stopped in front of a 1966 Ford police cruiser in front of the San Bernardino City Hall. Now there's something you don't see every day, Chauncy.
But the Authors & Artists did get their booths set up and elsewhere food & beverage booths, T-shirt stands, and port-o-lets covered the land.
I don't know how I managed to get this out of focus but it's not the first time I've done it to Ken. But, even a bit out of focus, I think the "Land Runner" looks good with his new do.
There are classic cars everywhere. Here's a pair of blue two-seaters both in the large 427 inch size; A choice of Chevy or Ford. The cruise route is over five miles long and, although cars were not packed bumper to bumper, there were no big gaps. Three dollar gas? No problem.
[Prev] [Site Home] [Home] [Next]