Cruisin' Down(river) Memory Lane

Thank you, Chris Matthews!
After reading my Cruisin' Downriver blog, and learning I was disappointed at not seeing a '55 Chevy in the hours I was at the Cruise on Fort St., Chris Matthews kindly sent me some photos of her husband Barry's classic Chevys - including the one above with Barry and her seated in it. Thanks Chris and Barry, for making my cruise season complete and for sharing your memories with me - and now with all our Downriver friends!

Fort St. could have been renamed “Memory Lane” on Saturday, June 26 when thousands of cruisers, and thousands more spectators gathered along miles of Fort St. to watch, and be a part of the 11^th annual “Cruisin’ Downriver.”

I watched from the corner of Longsdorf and Fort, just a few blocks from the house I grew up in on Hinton, standing in front of what used to be Mike’s Barber Shop and across Longsdorf from the bank parking lot where I learned to ride a two-wheeler nearly 50 years ago.

Hundreds of classic cars, bumper to bumper at times, cruised along Fort St. We had a different term for those cars back in late ‘50s and early ‘60s … they were called “traffic.” Today, when they gather, it’s more than just a celebration of “Detroit Iron,” it’s a celebration of a past era, and the people we all were back then.

I watched intently for a 1955 Chevy Bel Air. Any color, but cream-over-turquoise would have been ideal. That’s what my dad, Joe Saad, drove for a good part of my early childhood.

It was the car that we all went to St. Cyprian Church in every Sunday. It was the car that dad and mom drove every week to the National Supermarket. It was the car we sat in at the old Fort George Drive-In, and it was the car we’d take to Bob Jo’s Frozen Custard for a cool treat on hot summer nights.

It was on that car that dad taught me how to do an oil change and set a gap on a spark plug. And it was the first car I ever drove – on a gravel back road, long before I was actually old enough to drive. That little foray into the country was preceded by words of caution from dad, “Now, your mother doesn’t need to know about this …”

As I stood there at the curb on Fort St. last Saturday, I saw ’57 Chevys, I saw ’59 Plymouths, I saw Mustangs from almost every year – same with Corvettes, and I even saw a ’56 Chevy, cream-over-red, but not a single ’55 Chevy.

That’s OK, though, because for a few hours that afternoon, I was back there where it all happened for me, and for so many others, nearly 50 years ago. I realized that Crusin’ Downriver is as much about what the cars meant to us, as it is about the cars themselves. And as much – maybe even more – about the people that we rode in those cars with and the milestones in our lives that we passed sitting in those old bench seats.