Letters from Donna Lane: Central Lake Car Show

This Guest Blogger thing is great. Miss Sadie, the Cowboy and I were right there in Central Lake during last week’s Car Show, but did we take any pictures? No! We did not! Because we had used up our battery pack! Fortunately, Donna and Jeff Lane were there, too. Here’s Donna’s email:

On Saturday, the town of Central Lake was closed off to display 275 entries of old cars and trucks. The streets were filled with people all day long looking over the efforts of folks like Jeff Lane that poured tons of hours working on their restoration of the past. The store shops were a buzz with business and everyone one seemed to be smiling against the sunny blue skies. I am not one that particularly enjoys this kind of festivity but this day, I did take pleasure in the happening. It reminded me of the movie with Michael J. Fox called “Doc Holiday” and why a little town in northern Michigan can be wholesome fun.

Donna says it was the first time Jeff had entered a car show, but he earned one of the nine Concours Awards. Donna sent these pictures. (Click on an image to see a larger view.)

Jeff’s 1940 Ford pickup: (OK, now this is really the best part of blogging – AFTER I posted this story, I saw Jeff and mentioned that it would be nice to have another picture of the truck – and here it is. The Internet is a wonderful place.

The crystal Concours Award:

Ah, the associations of old cars. I have friends who get misty-eyed over 45-year-old Mustangs. Me, well – my Grampa had a pre-war Ford truck. “Grampa’s cruck” was a working farm truck, nowhere near as elegant as Jeff’s, and it was pretty old by the time I made its acquaintance. Still, I have a lot of happy memories of bouncing along the dirt roads of northern Wisconsin, watching the tall pines flow past, headed into town to the A&P for coffee and the latest news.