June 28, 2009
Left home at 5:10 and arrived at Fernandez Park
around 5:45. I had to seek out Kathy, who showed us where our
booth was to be located. I then drove the van over and we began
setting up. This was in a ball field...deep second base just into
right-center field. At least we weren't way out in left field,
which was actually the far end of the show.
We were able to park the van behind the booth. They had a lot of
cars on display in the event....perhaps a hundred on the field in front
of us and more off to the left. There were many more spread
througout the event all the way over to San Pablo Avenue.
Looks like a somewhat white (not upper) middle-class crowd and we had
decent sales, even though we did not have things that car buffs would
truly want. We catered to the families and to the wives.
Quite a number of kids there and the parents were anxious to buy
something inexpensive for them. This was the first car show we did
in about 13 years. We do better in street fairs and other type of
festivals.
Back in 1994-5 we did a couple of Spring Fair's here at Fernandez Park
and they cancelled it after the second year we did it. I do
believe it was over Memorial Day weekend.... during spring, of course.
It's not a bad place for an event, except it could be a scorcher out
there on the sandy infield.
I think that it was a pretty decent car show and if I have this weekend
free next year, we will be back. I had a number of vendor friends
there. I don't think that vendors, as a whole, did exceptionally
well... maybe a coupe? Whoops, that's a neat typo.
Coupe, get it? I meant 'couple'.
FOOD. Not much food there. I'm kettle-korned out, so I
didn't pick up any. We did get some food at this Mexican
restaurant a block from San Pablo. I got a taco salad and it was
decent. The shell was hand made and a bit on the oily side.
I had placed it on a table to take care of a customer. When I
picked it up, it broke in half and almost dropped to the ground.
Luckily it had placed in some tin foil and that saved it.
SHAVED ICE NOT NICE. However, I did buy a shaved ice. I
decided to get a pina-colada. The sign said $4. When I
handed the guy a five dollar bill, he said 'five dollars'. I
told him that his sign said 'four dollars'. Then he responded, "a pina
colada is two flavors'. Oh my gosh, what a dickbrain, a real
genuine shithead. All the times that I have bought shaved ice/pina
colada's, nobody ever said that they were charging me an extra dollar
because it was two flavors. Come on, get real. Stop ripping
people off wih that crap. Ya know, they still use the same total
amount of syrup. What a double dickbrain. I just said 'ohhh
my gosh....unreal' and gave him a dirty look. It was too hot to
argue with this dude. I worked in the Oakland Post
Office for 27 years so I know very well that you can not argue with an
idiot. You know what I mean. (please excuse my
descriptive language. We are all adults reading this, so it's okay
and I hope not to offend anyone. Imagine him looking at himself
ion the mirror and seeing...well, you know.)
That was the highlight of the day. Just a nice relaxing day at a
car show.
PLEASE EXPLAIN to me why people pay $30 (or whatever) to put their car
in a show like this and just sit around all day. At least sell car wax,
antennae ornaments, bananas to stick in people's tailpipes, etc.
But just sit there for 5-6 hours with your car out in the hot sun during
an absolutely beautiful Sunday afternoon? If you are selling your
grand-dad's 1919 Ford or whatever, then fine. I'm not trying to
put down anybody though because that's their thing.
NONETHELESS, these people put on a pretty good car show and did bring in
the crowds. Hat's off to them. Thank you for having us
there. Me and General MacArthur might return.
ROOKIE OF THE WEEK AWARD goes to the attractive ladies next to us
soliciting raffle tickets offering '100 bottles of wine for $5.'
They neglected to weigh down their light-weight budget canopy and it
flew away and ended up in Vallejo. I was sitting in my canopy and
looking in the direction of their booth. Suddenly. I saw the back
end lift into the air. It was like in slow motion. It
flipped over and landed 20 feet away. Too bad I couldn't jump out
of my seat and rush over and lay on the ground. You know, like
when people on the street see a bus get into an accident and run
onto the bus and get into position before the law comes.
It barely missed a couple of very surprised people.
