September 23rd

Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, these are not some of my favorite things. I've quoted lyrics from one of my favorite musicals but in case you had not guessed it.

Friday night we dodged raindrops again. Fortunately after six o'clock they were not that bad. They did however erase any possibility of my PT showing that she had been washed prior to making the trip north onto Poinciana Boulevard and then left onto SR 192 and then into Old Town. We can thank Rita for the showers. I do complain but it could have been much worse as we have seen in Texas and Louisiana on the news. I think the showers had much to do with the low turnout.

We had a total of 89 cruisers that registered for Fridays cruise. This week again I think I was suffering from double vision. Yep again two 1978 Corvette Indy Pace Cars. Both again looked very nice despite the water spots. There were a few other cars in attendance Friday night that are worth a mention here. The first is a very rare car that is the envy of more than one young man.

This car is a 1973 Jaguar XKE convertible. This transplant from the other side of the pond was painted a very nice shade of midnight blue with a black interior. It was equipped with a V 12 engine and a four speed transmission. Austin Powers would have been proud of this one. SHAGADELIC BABY.

I also saw the wake from this boat as it moored err parked. She was a gorgeous 1977 Mercury Grand Marquis two door hardtop. She was painted two tone gold and tan with a matching leather interior. This beauty was equipped with a 460 V 8 and was loaded. This one I'm told was until recently a one owner Colorado car with only 41,000 miles. I would have believed 41K miles, it was that clean.

The final car I will write about in this report seemed very timely to coincide with Steve's ongoing weekly series. This car is a 1974 Checker Marathon that was painted charcoal gray with a gray vinyl interior. This Checker was more unusual than most in that it had a 454 under the hood. Most of the Checkers of this vintage had either the Chevrolet 250 inline six or the Chevrolet small block V 8. It was almost necessary to carry a step stool to gain access to this one because it was mounted onto a Chevrolet Blazer two wheel drive chassis and sat as high as many four wheel drive rigs. It was definitely different. I would have preferred to have seen it restored as a stock Checker or maybe dressed up as a taxi cab as most of the Checkers were. The Checker marathon was built like a tank and withstood lots of abuse and that is why they were the favored brand for taxi duty, but eventually even the Sherman tank wears out and has to be put out to pasture. Such was the case with the Checker and there are not many that survived past livery duty and those that were bought by private parties were often retired because of rust issues.

Again this week we had four Checker (not to be confused with the car) flag winners.

The first was awarded to Manual Rivera with his very attractive 1975 Mazda RX-3 two door coupe. This little rotary power house is a light blue with a white and black interior.

The next flag went to Greg (The Poinciana Kid) Cordero with his white 1985 Chevrolet Camaro.

The third flag was awarded to Jim Smith with his red 1976 Chevrolet Corvette T-Top Stingray Coupe.

It seems only fitting that the last checker flag would be awarded to Greg Shaffer with his 1974 Checker Marathon four door sedan. A checker for a Checker or is that a Checker for a checker. I don't know I'm confused again and I thought I was too young for this kind of confusion.

We also had a few old friends that used to cruise every week until they moved to Georgia that came back to visit with us. It was good to see Tom and Linda Spinello again even if they did arrive without their cruiser.

Well again we have come to the end of another weekly report so until next week have fun and cruise safely.