Phantom iCal Events

Genesee Community Days Carshow: How I wish we were here today!

It's supposed to be Community Days in Genesee.  My husband organizes that car show, and we have been planning on spending the entire day at it since last year's show wrapped.  Of course, the car show and Community Days were cancelled this year, back at the beginning of April, along with a lot of things this summer.

It's one of those events that takes a lot of planning and lead-up, and the week before is a Frenzy.  The day of is an early morning requiring lots of ice-water packed and brought from home and enough sunscreen to get us through the day with bi-hourly reapplications.  I always register thousands of steps on my FitBit on Community Days.  I always dread it a little bit in the lead-up, but once I'm there and we're all set up and the cars start rolling in, I love every minute.  

Some of the people who bring cars to the car show are friends going way back to when we started into the classic car community.  We used to meet up for cruises at Fezz's Diner in Coudersport.  Some people, I see only at this car show, and we pick right up talking where we left off the year before.  

I'm infamous at this car show because one year we brought two of our cars, and my husband had me driving the one that has manual transmission because the other car we were bringing was his pride and joy, a white-knight of an AMX that is the nicest car we have.  (I have to take my shoes off before I get in this car, because I am basically Pigpen, and this car has won awards at the American Motors show).  He didn't want me driving that car, and I didn't want the pressure.  So I drove the stickshift Spirit AMX.  He drove behind me  It was a drizzly day that year, and the show-field grass was wet and the ground was soft and everybody was standing around as we drove in.  When I drive stick, I get flustered easy, early, and often.  

So I spun out getting to my parking spot.  Dirt, grass, mud, and sod flew all over the hood and windshield of the White Knight AMX.  Everybody saw.  Everybody had a good laugh.  Heck, I laughed.  Shane laughed, even though I could see he was irked, having spent the whole day before, washing the cars meticulously.  I tried to laugh and act like "so what?!" but I did get a microfiber cloth and the spray bottle of water to try to clean up the mess I'd made of his pride and joy.

It's funny now, looking back.  A lot of people thought it was funny that day.  I was mortified, though.  I beat myself up over that for the whole rest of the day.  I still do, even though I also appreciate the humor.

The important thing is that memories are made at that car show and at Community Days as a whole.  And it isn't happening this year.  It's still in iCal, and yesterday and this morning, I got an alert that they're going all weekend.  Except they're not.  They're phantoms.  Ghosts of memories that will never be made. And it's really for real.  Last night, we met a dear friend and her girls at the park that Community Days is held in.  That should have been buzzing with activity and people and the band last night.  Instead, it was a low-key night at the park.  I bet today will be a low-key kind of day there.

I wish we were at that car show.  I wish Community Days were still happening.  It's going to be quite a low-key kind of summer.  On one hand, that's good.  We've all wished to be less committed to everything.  Now that we've got that wish, though, and phantom iCal events start popping up, it does make a gal wonder about how the show would have gone this year, and wonder about all the stories she isn't going to hear and all the memories she isn't going to make.  

Here's to brighter community days and packed car shows Next Year, Friends.