Surfing Ruined My Life

I was in Southern California on the O'Briens Book Tour last week. Woke up early one Sunday morning in Santa Barbara, in a guest cottage up on Mission Ridge. T he night before had read & talked at Project Fine Art Zone. Went out looking for breakfast stuff. Ended up at Gelson's Market on Upper State Street. Coffee, grapefruit, croissant. (Having grown up in Montreal, it still troubles my delicate frenchified ear to hear Americans pronouncing the 't' in "croissant").
            Caught this woodie in the empty Sunday 8 a.m. parking lot, at Loreto Plaza.
             According to Pat Rogers, this is a 1936 Ford.

Is it woodie, or woody? Anyway, I've always wanted one, but they belong to a different old-car market than the one I inhabit. I favor old plain-jane trucks. These are what I can afford on a novelist's salary. Would need to add a few zeroes to go woodie. My Santa Barbara pal Frank Mariani knows everything there is to know re. restoring and maintaining these wagons. Autoliterate featured a 1932 Ford woodie a couple weeks back.

        Today, in Maine, I saw a PT Cruiser with vinyl faux-woodgrain on the body. Something about "history being repeated as farce" crossed my mind. Was that Marx?

Meanwhile, I have been promised transportation via 1965 Ferrari from my book tour date in Winston Salem NC next week to the Virginia International Speedway.