Chrome, flames... and a time driving by...

We didn't have any choice but to let our jaws slacken as we looked at the dozens and dozens of automotive beauties at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds where the Minnesota Street Rod Association was showcasing vintage cars. (What a bad ass name for an association, no?)

I can't remember the last time I heard the kid gasp and exclaim like he did seeing the Thunderbirds and Caddies, the hot rods and rag tops on display.

I admit doing a few audible sighs too.

But once in a while the commercialism slammed hard enough in the chin that it overcame gushing. "I think that some of these people are here just so they can get money," said the little guy, allowing me to breath a little easier that he wouldn't be completely sucked in by the glitz.


It's not surprising that you'd find somethings on sale. Tumbling dice and shades... old automotive manuals and pamphlets and, of course, the usual edible crap that one must ingest if they are going to walk about the fairgrounds site.

I think it was only once or twice that the boy actually asked for something from the vendors. That allowed me to keep the wallet intact.

But here's the thing -- as you walk around looking at these hulking cars you get a sense of being in a museum.

The 50's music is blaring away and you think that you'll pull into some Texaco station and pay four or five bucks to fill up one of these babies. It's as if you buy a ticket to the show, walk through the gates and any semblance of $4-a-gallon gas is obliterated.

And the commercialism itself smacks of some kind of American wake, marking a time of purchasing might that has passed us by.

It's a stubborn, defiant kind of display. Like all of us -- the visitors and the vendors, the gawkers and the hawkers -- we are going to keep at what made the good ol' U.S.of A. great. I'll look at the big, expensive cars and not give a moments thought to how impractical they might be. I will consume and not have a thought about an economy tottering about like a broken-down junker.

We look in a mirror these days and see an image that we might not like so much. So instead, we peer into the chrome and the glossy finishes of these roadsters and, like that gel they put on movie cameras for aging starlets, we look a little better. Right?