The Past

Before I get to my first experience with this vehicle I'd like to look at the past.

The past is often forgotten it seems. We tend to spend so much time focused on the future very little on the present and lesser more on the past. More of people's time seems to me to be on how and what the future will hold for them, "that garden is gonna look great when it blooms this spring!"

People spend so much time focused on how great things are gonna be tomorrow, that they seem to not notice how beautiful it is today. I'm not gonna say I'm not guilty myself,  I surely am. 

It's only when something reminds you of the ones you have loved and lost do you take the time to sit back and reflect on how your life has been effected by having that person or car or whatever it may be there for that time. 

I've recently had cause for reflection for several reasons myself. As the Pearl Inches closer to turning the big six zero I've thought about the history it has seen. I don't know where it was sold, how long they had it originally or even how many miles it has.

I do however know who owned it last and that at some point during the early eighties it was hugger orange and completely disassembled in that Seattle backyard. I never met the man that last had the heart to take the heart out of her, I have however spent time with his family and I continue to ensure that the car makes the annual car show in the neighborhood it spent so much time in.

Even with all the dust collected from conversations and stories you hear,  they just come short of saying the same things as the scratches and dings that litter the paint. The ladder bars where a first clue but after some cleaning and digging under the seat the vintage time sheets from Bremerton raceway circa nineteen eighty-seven told a much greater story. With a healthy cam and a quarter mile pass just over one hundred miles per hour it's clear what the agenda was.

I keep those cards on the heater box to remind me that I am only the current car taker of this vehicle and it will out live me like it's outlived many before me.