STANDARD TRANSMISSIONS
Talking classics
By Rik Davie/The Scugog Standard

It’s car weather, people! The sun is out and so are the classic cars of Scugog.

The classic car community in these parts is a close-knit and community focused bunch of folks just like the other community groups that call Scugog home. The members of Cruisin’ Classics, who hold show and shines throughout the year on Tuesday evenings at the church on Reach St. just past the fairgrounds, raise funds and collect products for Operation Scugog each year and they are a big help in the planning and execution of The Scugog Standard’s Chrome by the Lake car show every summer.

Speaking of which (what a segue, eh?) Chrome by the Lake is now five years old and is set to burst onto the waterfront this June 26.

Once again, hundreds of classics from the 20s on through to the present day will fill Water St. and thousands of visitors will fill our town and empty their wallets into our local stores. The dollars raised will go toward what will surely turn into my pet project for the next few years.

The Standard is directing all the funds raised to the building and equipping of a real old-time newspaper and printing office on the grounds of the Scugog Shores museum. The existing one-room shop will be replaced over time with a building capable of holding the extensive printing collection that currently sits in storage and unseen by the public. For me, it will be a return to my family’s roots as my grandfather was a printer by trade who sold his business because there was no one old enough to follow him into the ink and plates.

If you’ve got an old car, want an old car or just like old cars, come on out and help make it yet another successful Chrome by the Lake.

Not enough classic cars yet you say?

Many of you may have seen the story in last week’s paper about ‘Vettes for Vets.’ It’s another little Standard brainstorm that will see as many Corvettes (the cars not the ships) as we can find parade down Queen St. on Canada Day (Thursday, July 1), each with a local veteran in the passenger seat.

What a response. We already have about 15 Vette owners, some from as far away as Lindsay, who have called to say they’ll meet us at the Port Perry High School rear parking lot at 9:30 a.m. The parade will be over by noon and we want to build this into an annual event. So shine up your Vette, borrow a Vette or buy a Vette and join me (in the 2010 Vette from the folks at Gus Brown) and Port Perry’s own Vette guru Devon Powell in his radical racing Vette for a slick cruise to honour our veterans. Just call us at 905-985-6985 to take part. It’ll be a ride, it will.

Now, as long as we are talking classics, I cannot finish this week without marking the passing of a Cartwright classic, Neil Malcolm.

After a long life of farming and community involvement that made him a fixture, first in the old Cartwright Township and then in Scugog and North Durham, Neil left us last week.

For me, he was one of the ‘old guard’ who, when I first came here to report on the doings, took the time to clue in the city kid as to what was what and, more importantly, who was who.

I used to joke with people that Neil was the only person in Cartwright who would actually admit to being a Liberal and that was just because he knew it annoyed people. Neil was one of those fellows who you could agree with or disagree with but you never had to guess what he thought. He was fiercely protective of his community and family and being on his wrong side (which I managed a time-or-two) could be an extremely uncomfortable place. But if he liked what I wrote, he was just as generous with his praise. Since we began The Standard, and in my previous incarnation, Neil would drop by my office and sit and talk on things newsworthy.

When he did, his lovely bride would say to mine, ‘Oh they’re talking politics. Now we’ll never get out of here.”

And let me tell you, you don’t know squat about backroom politics until you’ve been to the back room with the likes of Neil Malcolm. I’ll miss that!