Speaking of "age" (bite your tongue), I've got a big one coming up this week--Thursday to be exact--as the old personal speedo/mileage accumulator will roll over to the big EIGHT-OH, and while it's just another random page off the calendar, like every other day, I do recall that "80" truly seemed to mean something special when I was a wee tad (see picture of me during my "I should've eaten more salad" days below) and then later, after I'd earned use and mis-use of the keys to the family car(s), I recall that "80" was where things started to get interesting speed-wise and also where you had to sharpen your eye on the rear-view mirror for policemen and state troopers. Regarding other members of our extended family, 80 seemed to be about where relatives and parents' friends ceased to be of any use whatever except as generous and semi-generous gift-givers on birthdays, holidays and special occasions...

But Perspective (see top headline above) changes as the rings accumulate inside the old tree trunk, and I must say I feel as spry and full of promise as I ever did except for the way my feet hurt if I let my enthusiasm get the better of my judgement when I'm dancing (a rare occourence these days and, trust me, you DON'T want to see it!) or in exercise class and I should probably own stock in the PEPCID anti-acid company.

Aside (seen and heard though a gauzy veil of Ravi Shankar music and fluttering rainbow colors): Why, I can remember when eating acid seemed like a GOOD thing to do...

But times change and so do we, and wife Carol and I (52 years served of hopefully a Full-Life Sentence--and still counting--as of next Valentines' Day) consider ourselves as both blessed and fortunate to have come this far and weathered all the turbulent storms and ominous calms along the way.

Which is probably why it's taking me so damn long to finish the "Lotus Love Affair" book I've been working onas well as the second "Potside Companion" short story collection it was originally meant to be but a single chapter of. Turns out the two of them together amount to more-or-less an autobiography of misty memories and standout moments of conquest or sheer terror kind of whisked-and-whirled together with salient bits of real automotive, mainstream & racing history and occasional nuts-and-bolts technology. And I keep thinking of more and more stuff that not simply "should go in," but that I dare not leave out.

Like my first job(s) and all the irresponsible things I did with my folks' cars and the highlights and grim eventual realities of my so-called "racing-and-wrenching career" and how I came to drive and race all these wonderful old historic and even iconic cars by writing stories about them. Still can't believe it.

Take the first road race I ever went to at Meadowdale in 1959. My folks took me (thankyou!thankyou!) and they dressed as you might for a nicely catered garden party (my dad--always a snappy dresser--in a sports coat, somewhat flashy tie and a snappy hat with one of those little Tyrolean whisk brooms on the side, and my mom in a lovely garden-party dress and low heels) and the venue had all the charm of an abandoned construction side. The wind blew, the dust flew, you had to step over abandoned 2x4s and sad, empty sacks of concrete and gravel and what little greenery there was seemed mostly burrs, pickers and nettles.

It was noisy, too.

And, of course, I was enraptured!

I remember most vividly that the Scarabs won that day (by then they'd been sold off to Harry Heuer and were now the Meister Brausers, and they were absolutely gorgeous and unbelievably fast in the hands of Harry and his hired-gun friend and Team Ace Augie Pabst (Harry's family, who owned the Peter Hand brewery in Chicago, weren't very happy about having a "Pabst" on the team) but that was the day the hook was well-and-truly set.

It was roughly four decades later--give or take--that, thanks to The Revs Institute in Naples, FL, I got a chance to drive/track test the same exact Scarab/Chev that I'd worshiped and yearned for from the far side of the fences all those years before at Meadowdale.

How cool is that?

TOP BELOW: Meister-Brauser Scarabs going through Greg's Corkscrew at Meadowdale with a callow young BS Levy cheering and salivating from the fences.

BOTTOM BELOW: Me in the same exact "003" Scarab (they only built three "real" ones) I saw all those years and decades ago at Meadowdale.

Also had to tell the tale of how all this "ride mooching" began, and that starts with Chicago restaurateur/event promotor/Ferrari trader Joe Marchetti, who ran The Como Inn Italian restaurant and always had a lot of neat, interesting and exotic cars passing this-way and that-way through his hands. He's essentially started the big July vintage races at Road America out of his own brain and pocketbook, and it went from an informal/no-crowd gathering of his friends and customers into, well, surely the biggest and best vintage-racing weekend in North America save possibly Montery. He lost his hold on it along the way (shit happens...especially when money is involved), but in my opinion he's the guy who guided it and supported it through those early years and gave it the style and laid the foundation for what it was to become. But it was just pecking its way out of its shell in 1984, and Joe and I knew each other a little bit and he knew I wrote stuff and raced with some success in bottom-rung classes in MCSCC and SCCA racing and also that I'd won an SCCA National at Road America and set a new and very short-lived lap record the previous August. So he asked me to write "A Drivers-Eye View of Road America" for his July '84 race program--which I did--and, in return and rather than writing me a check, he put me in an absolutely lovely Ferrari 250 Short-Wheelbase Berlinetta that was passing through his hands in the big April "Walter Mitty Challenge" vintage race at Road Atlanta.

What an experience! Not because the Ferrari was so unapproachably pedigreed and patrician, but because it was so solid, gentle to the touch, user-friendly and felt like it could go on all day and all night long, too. Which they did at all the major bigtime endurance races at Sebring, Le Mans and everywhere else many times over. I learned an important truth that day: a first-year fiddle-plucker can saw away at a Stradivarius, but it's not going to make him or her sound much better. I also learned that the very best of the best get that way because of their willing and friendly nature, not because they are so hard and demanding to operate. I also found that, given my experience--particularly at Road Atlanta--compared to Joe's other similarly-mounted, comparatively inexperienced customers that day, I looked pretty damn good. And I didn't hurt anything, either. So, as is always the case in motor racing, I came to realize "IT'S NEVER HOW FAST YOU ARE, BUT WHOM AND WHAT THEY PUT YOU IN AGAINST THAT TRULY COUNTS!"

I wrote a nice story about the experience (see below) for AutoWeek, they liked it and published it and I was, as they say, on my way...