Human Cattle Drive, The Woodward Dream Cruise
What if I were to tell you that there was a place on this Earth where 16 miles of pavement would be temporarily mobbed by 1.7 million people milling about while 40,000 old cars creep past them, showering the landscape with soot and geriatric pop music? And that this happens every year at this time?
Would you say, SafeT! Count me in! That sounds great!?
Oh, but there’s more, hypothetical and enthusiastic reader. The 40,000 cars are, for the most part, over thirty years old. This means that even the individual specimens that have catalytic converters don’t have very good catalytic converters. All the carbon monoxide you could ever want, just there for the breathing. Lean towards the road and inhale that history! That… toxic, crappy history. Still interested?
It all started in the mid-90′s:
(In 1995) Car clubs, car buffs, oldies music fans and people of the generation who remembered coming of age during those heady days on Woodward were ready to reinvent the past.
Romanticizing the past is not uniquely American. I’ve read stories of Germans longing for a return to the “innocent” days of the GDR* and of Russian apologists idolizing Stalin. But we in the Detroit area go one further and over-inflate our nostalgia in the way only the country sporting not one but FOUR World’s Biggest Balls of Twine can.
Ignoring the fact that our country’s past is a sexist, alcohol-stewed universe of institutionalized racism, mandatory military service**, medicinally applied mercury tinctures and music by “The Archies”, the Dream Cruise still bears as much resemblance to the weekend cruising of old as the Goodyear Blimp resembles a latex birthday balloon.
Its not enough to re-enact the idle pursuits of our parents’ squandered youth, we need to make it so monstrously huge that it can be photographed from space and impacts the local economy as if it were Christmas.
Remember how much you liked butter on your toast? Well, that memory should make you happy to eat an entire tub of margarine with this parfait spoon. Go ahead, I’ll wait. …ok, moving on.
I have friends who live close to this intentional redneck traffic jam*** who actually flee the area on a sort of forced-vacation every year. And I’ve heard that the local authorities will begin distributing Dream Cruise Survival Kits next year. These kits will include a small Chinese manufactured gas mask, a bottle of water, duct tape, 4oz of name brand corn chips and a late model Koontz or Grishom novel****.
I should provide a disclaimer, here. I actually own a 1972 Buick Centurion, a massive barge of Detroit steel which barely fits in my garage. It was left to me by my grandfather, I drive it only on weekends in the summer, and usually only to a local park with my eldest daughter. I think it’s unique and special. I bet most people with classic cars think that they own unique and special vehicles.
That’s what makes the Dream Cruise so great. What better way can there be to validate the specialness of your classic car than burying it in a crowd of 39,999 other old cars?*****
So what do you think of this massive money shot on the alter of our Lord the Internal Combustion Engine? Good? Bad? Carburetted?
* Say what you will about totalitarian security states, but there’s a certain attraction to any society that would actually build and drive the 25hp Trabant.
** Say what you will about American military quagmires, at least there’s some small solace to be had in knowing that every American in this one actually volunteered to go there. …But I suppose that might be more of a sad statement of how desperate for employemnt and/or delusional our youth are.
*** His words, not mine. Not that I don’t agree, I just can’t take credit for it.
**** The survival kit may keep you alive, but not living well. No, not at all.
***** I’m assuming, in this example, that your car is the 40,000th.
Yes, I remember it well. I and 3-4 of my female friends could cruise through Florissant, Ferguson, Riverview, and Cool Valley MO in Mom’s 61 Impala convertible, from one burger joint to another all evening long, on any given Friday night for $1.00 each for gas and $.25 for a pack of cigarettes at the Clark station. Sometimes there were so many cars cruising the same route, that it seemed there were at least 40,000 cars with teenagers and or young adults on the roads with us, not to mention “civilians” (families in cars who made the mistake of venturing out on the roads of St. Louis County, during our time to use them)and of course the cops who lay in wait hoping to catch us laying rubber when leaving a burger joint or stop sign. Often we would form impromptu parades of all convertibles or all Corvettes that would reach over a hundred cars strong by the time it snaked through all the burger joints. Ah, the care free times of throwing cups, wrappers, cigarette butts and chewing gum out the windows, and playing music on our car radios full blast, but still not loud enough to shake the next car like they do now.
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