Shiny old cars! Whee!

Last weekend, Becky, Loyette and I went to "Harriman' Cruisin 2008," a street festival in the kinda sorta nearby town of Harriman. Basically, Harriman Cruisin' involves a bunch of car buffs parking their classic cars all up and down Main Street and letting people ooh and aah at them. Here's my photo gallery.

As the title and the above photo suggest, it's mostly pictures of shiny old cars, but there are a few miscellaneous shots of what is otherwise, frankly, kind of a depressed, Rust Belt-ish looking downtown area. (See, e.g., here and here.) In fact, if you look closely, you might see some small-town folk who look a little bitter and might well be clinging to religion and, er, antipathy to people who aren't like them. ;)

Anyway, we had fun. Old cars are neat. We even saw a Ford Model A! Here, again, is the link to the gallery.

UPDATE: As noted in comments, the above-pictured car is (I think!) a 1959 Chevy Impala. Here's an old "subliminal" TV ad for it, featuring Pat Boone and Dinah Shore:

Ain't YouTube great?

Comments

[eagleye]

Off-topic, but too good not to share....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpDTvlSd0x4

It isn't just in Pennsylvania, where polls show a slow erosion of support, that white women are turning away from one of their own in the Democratic primary for President.

Here in Nashville, an intriguing collective has taken to video sharing site YouTube to challenge the notion that Barack Obama is the candidate of the African-American community or the young. A group of seasoned female Nashvillians, several of whom are quite prominent in the community, have proudly declared themselves "White Haired Women for Obama."

The video – available at this link – was the brainchild of Belle Meade resident Patricia Burton, who wrote the script and tapped local filmmaker Travis Nicholson to direct. The video was produced as an entry in Moveon.org's "Obama in Thirty Seconds" contest. The winner, selected by a panel of celebrity judges, will see their ad aired nationally courtesy of Moveon.org and will receive a $20,000 gift certificate for video equipment. The deadline for entries is Tuesday.

For at least one member of the group of women, this video could be seen as something of a logical extension of past activism. Eugenia Moore, who appears in the video shouting "strong" as one of Obama's admirable qualities, worked with prominent Rev. Will Campbell, a pastor who broke with his conservative Baptist denomination to become a leading white supporter of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

[Joe Loy]

Cool :)

[I refer here to the classic Cars but certainly so are the Classic Obama Girls Seasoned Female Nashvillians For Barack; thanks eagleye :]

The beautiful bright-red vehicle in the featured photo conjures nice memories from my Youth. Those cars were very popular & extremely Noticeable. / Now I'm not a Buff so those who are can tell me ~ it's a '59 Chevy Impala, right?? (?)

But of course the Ultimate classic ride is pictured here. Far out, maaan :}.

[Mindsurfer]

Ah, yes.
As John McDermott sang: I miss him, The Old Man.

[C. Bassett]

I believe the featured photo(IMG_7774) is a good ol' 55 Chevy. That's certainly an Impala in the third photo down on the left side(IMG_7769), but I can't be sure of the year.

[Brendan Loy]

As we were looking at the cars, I mused aloud on whether, 50 years from now, people will be going to classic car shows, looking at Toyota Camrys and such. Hmm...

[Joe Loy]

C. Bassett ~ ah, then you're right but so am I! Thanks! By "featured photo" I meant the one shown in Brendan's mainpage post, which IS the 3rd one down on the left side on the linked Photogallery page ~ my '59 Impala (not that I ever actually Had one :) - whereas you, more correctly, meant the one Featured on that gallery page, your good ol' '55 Chevy. Excellent. :) // Truth be told, I had Cheated by Googling before my previous comment ~ BUT what I googled was "Chevrolet Impala" because that's what my foggy old memory Said of the red car with the wonderful Wings on its back :>, so my cheating Confirmed my memory :]. I didn't Nail the Year though; I had thought, vaguely, "well, somewhere in the range of about '58 to '62." But research seems to indicate that those mighty Wings were only on the '59. (??)

Mindsurfer: Right on, maaan :}

[DC]

Jealous! (of the cars)

I love classic cars :) What was the MPG on those things? 8? Seeing your pictures makes me wonder how cars like that red convertible (not even going to try and guess) ever looked "not cool" to designers. I'd drive that in a second.

[C. Bassett]

Oh my goodness, that wasn't too smart of me. Sorry about that, Mr.Loy. Seems it's about time for me to go get my eyes checked. ;)

[Joe Loy]

Nonono, C. Bassett! It wasn't your vision; it was my diction ("the featured photo") that was Unfocused. :)