Ed LaHaie display, 1989 World of Wheels, McCormick Place

Best of all, there's a new love on my arm, and I want to show her a grand time, here in my element in the city of my birth. In many ways, on this day she is much like myself on that day in the '60s on the south side, never having seen something of this magnitude, the Miller High Life World of Wheels, and as such the day is a fun and re-energizing experience. Although it’s all the same, per se, it's also all new, so like a big old margarita, I just drink it in and enjoy it.

Come time to leave, though, and as the Great Yogi would say, "it's Deja vu all over again", because who else do we see at the bottom of the escalator on the way to the garage but Broadway Bob. By now, we actually do know each other and strike up a conversation, and Robert, in the presence of a pretty girl, could become quite the silver-tongued Devil, so it was not much of a surprise that he invited us to "be his guests" at the upcoming Great Lakes Dragway Banquet. (Which was what the flyers were plugging that he was handing out.) The idea of going to the banquet had never entered my mind until then, but with a business to plug and a woman to impress, I hit that thing like it was the beaches of Normandy, dressed to kill and aimed to thrill, and over drinks after the awards were handed out, Bob asked me to work at the track for him. (Remember, game changer.)

This would begin six of the best years of my life, meeting some of the greatest people in the world, and after the 1994 season, when Bob gave the keys to the new owners, most of "us", aka 'Bob’s People', turned ours in as well, because without Robert, Union Grove became just another 1320 feet of asphalt, and it was time to move on.

And now we move on to three years ago, and the Donald Stevens Center in Rosemont, Ill., for what is now the O'Reilly Auto Parts World of Wheels, with all the usual cast of characters in place (even the orange towel guy!) but key-note events on today’s visit will be that Al Bergler has a couple of cars he will cackle at specific times. As I misjudge traffic, I'm dramatically close to the time I targeted, and find myself charging down the concourse like a deranged Ray Nitschke, prepared to take out ANYTHING that might get in my way and deny me my 'nitro-fix'.

Fortunately, I arrive just as the cars are being pushed outside. (Al was set up by an exterior door with a little concourse, and again, "Global warming" had it that snow was not a factor.) The starter spun, the novices FLIPPED, and even though an experienced nose could tell it was a light load, NOTHING blows the winter blahs out of the water like a face full of NITRO! We all give them a nice round of applause, and I gave Al a business card, which he was grateful to receive. (He had just eaten a pork-chop sammich and had something stuck in his teeth, so the card came in handy.)

Now it was off to the other side of the venue, which I proceed to at a decidedly slower pace (still reeling from my heart attack-inducing entrance) to get in line for an autograph from, and the hopes to actually talk to, Christopher Douglas Reed ("Filthy Phil" from TV’s Sons of Anarchy). Usually these celebrity meet-and-greet deals are very much a "cattle-drive", you know, get the autograph, GET OUT! But Christopher is not wired that way, taking time to make everyone feel like it was HIS honor to see YOU. (I'm good with "gauging B.S." and young Mister Reed is one of the nicest people, in a very mean business, I've ever met.) Not only did I get a wonderful, personalized autographed head-shot, but we talked at length about a particular scene from the show, where he went off script, and Charlie Hunham bought on and ad-libbed some stuff, all to the approval of writer/director/producer Kurt Sutter.

With back-to-back mind blowing experiences under my belt, at that point I could have left happy, but still strolled around for a while. (Well, until I had enough of "non-car people", doing things like leaning over ropes to get finger prints on cars, or running over my toes with baby-buggies that have a six-year-old in it.)

With another successful "squash the winter blahs" day under my belt, it was time to point the Chicago Jon Mobile into the setting sun and head on home. Coincidentally, if not ironically, on the drive as I passed through Elk Grove Village, I passed the "Where Else?" lounge, a staple on Higgens Road for decades, but if you've read Clark Howard’s book LOVE'S BLOOD, you'll know this bar played heavily in the 1976 Columbo family murder case. What, AGAIN with the psycho murder-stuff?  That's the best part of life, sometimes, you simply can NOT make this stuff up!

Well, that's all for now … support DragRacingOnline.com’s sponsors … I'll be back soon with some more tales for you. ’Til then as always, time for me to say......C-YAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!