A New Column from a Different Perspective

Car Show Memories

By “Chicago Jon” Hoffman

"Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends! We're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside!"
- The late Keith Emerson, side two, track one, BRAIN SALAD SURGERY

The things you buy, the places along the way…. Yep, I still have the Hill pennant. I think the sketch guy was a fan of Jay Leno.

So, as you’re reading this, the flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, baseball is under way (go CUBS!) and the season is springing eternal, so what better time to discuss shaking off the winter blahs!

OK, so winter has been over for a while, or what PASSES for winter these days anyway. Man, this whole (Jon now does those sarcastic finger-quotes) "Global-warming thing", is this like, the most annoying fad EVER?? Man, even the Spice Girls eventually went away! You remember them, right??  There was, uh, 'Tongue-pierce-Spice', 'Nice-rack-Spice', and the one that was married to the soccer-stud-puppet, 'Praying-Mantis-Spice'?

Anyhoo, winter blahs, long before we had Pomona live on TV, we had Pomona, maybe sometime mid-May, on Wide World, sandwiched in between cliff diving and the Globetrotters. Before the internet, there was print media, which was great but not all that much faster, so winters, while much colder, with more snow, which, by the way, we had to walk UPHILL through, BOTH WAYS, to get to school, and for racing fans like me, who didn't benefit from living in Southern Cali, the winter seemed to take forever. What did we have to break up the monotony? Two words, Young Jedi...car shows.