Bob - 1967. Cathlamet, WA.
This 1968 Camero was Bob's 1st love. He bought it with his own money ... money earned
the hard way doing summer jobs and working in the woods with his Dad's log
trucking business.
I only saw it once - but I recognized it
immediately because Bob talked nonstop about it. He loved it.
It was teal colored and a hot rod ... he outran
cops and was untouchable; he wasn't doing anything illegal, just having fun with the local cops. And they were pissed
because they could not catch him even though they all KNEW it was him dusting
them. He also used his hot rod as a time car for stock car racers at the Tacoma
Speedway - racers with a big race coming up would call him to come run his car
against theirs because they knew his car was unbeatable and if they could beat
his time, they would win the race.
Bob told me, when we bought the
Horizon 2½ years ago (shown here), that it was the same color as his Camero
was.
His Camero was pretty much all I heard about for the
first 3 years of our relationship/marriage.
I listened; you all know how it is with your 1st
love. LOL
So anyway, we & Doug (yes, my old boyfriend)
were out one afternoon hitting the bars, playing pool and being young when in
one bar on Commerce - the one where Country Folks Deli was for 2 decades until
they recently moved - the past and the present collided. Before it was a Deli,
it was a relic of a bar: nice, but old-timey with a huge woodtop-bar counter
that covered one entire wall and boot scraper rail underneath the bar top. A
looooong mirror covered the wall behind the bar. It reminded me of an old-time
cowboy bar, which it probably was. I needed some fresh air, so I stepped outside
to clear my head and have a cigarette. I looked up and saw this guy dinking
under the hood of a car that seemed very familiar to me.
Though I had never SEEN Bob's car because he had
sold it during his first marriage when Alex came along and money was tight ...
I KNEW THIS WAS HIS CAR because he had talked about it so much in glowing
detail that I knew that I KNEW this was "THE car". Every instinct
lead me forward and I asked the guy what was wrong with the car. He told me,
and I got excited for Bob, and said, "I think this is my husband's car -
I'll go get him and he can tell you exactly what is wrong and how to fix
it."
I went back into the bar and said to Bob,
"Babe, there is a guy outside working under the hood of your Camero: why
don't you go see if you can help him out a bit."
Bob looked at me quizzically and I explained what I
saw and told him again to "Go! Go see your girl one more time." The
gleam in Bob's eyes would have made me jealous if I was not secure in his love
for me; hahaha
He practically ran out the door. I followed and
watched from the sidelines as Bob stuck his head under the hood of his Camero
and explained to the guy what needed to be done. Then the guy shook Bob's hand,
hopped into Bob's baby, and sped off.
I finally got to see Bob's first love.
We have had several cars, trucks, min-vans, and
off-road vehicles in our 44 years together, but that Camero was always top
dog ;-)
Bob was 17 years old in this picture and batching
it in the house he, his dad, and his brother built on the upper end of the
family property in Cathlamet, so he could finish out his last 2 years of High
School with his friends and football team when the rest of the family moved to
Toutle.
I had not yet moved to Cathlamet; we still lived in
Skamokawa. 7 years later Bob and I married and lived in the big house he lived
his youth in on the backside of the family property; and 3 years later, I
finally met the love of his life (besides me, of course, who topped the top
dog ;-)).
