Railroad Days Car Show 2010

Lana and Ron's 64 Chevy. License plates appropriately reads "RMBR 64".

Due to wet Standish Park grounds the cars were parked in the street.

Tom and Ronda who called the cops on me when I came to visit, but I don't hold grudges.

Lana and Ron (Redi-Mix) Harn from Bushnell, my pals when I was a member of the Western Illinois Antique Auto Club. Ron celebrated a birthday last month.

Here then are my cars from back in the day:

"Baby" a 1962 Plymouth Belvedere at a car show in Bishop Hill.
My 1966 Chrysler 300 at a show in Lincoln Park.
My '65 Ford Galaxie at Lake Story.

My '67 Chrysler Newport at Lake Story.

This is "Priscilla", my '61 Chrysler Imperial Southampton, again at Lake Story.

I come from a golfing family. All told there are around 5 hole-in-one's from people in the Blythe clan, and I'm sure my Dad would loved to have had all three boys out there every weekend driving like Tiger. But I was lucky enough to escape the fairways and I decided to drive old cars instead. My first car was a '57 Volkswagen with a small window in the back and it cost me $100.00 when I was in high school. I waxed it every weekend and soon rubbed the silver paint off. In college I had a '47 Plymouth I bought from a classmate. If I have pictures of them they are deep in the cardboard box stuffed somewhere.

The bug bit me again while working at the Mary Davis Home, and this is the story of Baby. Nancy and I took some days off and I enjoyed travelling the back roads in search of interesting old cars, some of which just might be for sale. This was pre-internet and Craigslist days so the thrill was in just coming around a bend and seeing one by the side of the road. We decided on a southern route, St. David-Canton-Knoxville, and she had Wal-Mart on her list to look for a blind. We saw an old one somewhere along the route, an old hemi Chrysler but it was very expensive. Then going through Canton, I came up on a bluff and over to my right I saw and yelled, "Wal-Mart." At the same time she saw Baby to the left and yelled "old car!" Well, she got the blind at Wal-Mart and then we went across the street to check out Baby. She was in excellent condition, could use some paint, and had a rip in her front seat. Baby had 4 doors but the mileage was a bit over 9,000. Unbelievable, plus it was affordable. I could just about buy her if I shook all the cushions in the couch and recliner.

We left for Galesburg and I couldn't shake the possibility of an old car. I dreamed of sitting in a lawn chair at car shows answering questions from all the admirers. A week went buy and all the while I was begging Nancy to let me get her (we had a democratic decision-making thing going on). I even wrote her a letter expressing my eternal thanks if she would just give me the "word". OK, maybe this democratic decision-making thing wasn't the brightest idea but it may have saved me from other blunders. Sunday rolled around and I marched up to her and said, "OK, if I can't get it, at least I'll go down and take a picture of her." And off I went, back down to Canton to get a picture of my darling, elusive car. When I got down there, she was gone. No evidence of her along the side of the road. I was crushed, and with droop-shoulders went back to Galesburg. It must have been an icy week at the Blythe residence, as dreams sometimes die hard. Another week goes by practically and I come home the following Friday from work and get out of the truck to put it in the garage. When I got the door half-way up I saw Baby's green rear end tucked inside. Yup, Nancy had bought it for me, and driven it back with the help of a friend. The reason it wasn't there on Sunday when i drove down was the deal had been consummated and he was getting it washed. I actually tear up and started a decade long love affair with an ugly old Plymouth. She was, of course, beautiful to me, and the idea that my wife actually did that made me all the happier. I got my lawn chair and Baby and I hit the old-car show circuit and I threw the golf clubs in my garage to gather dust.