Woodward Dream Cruise for Linda 6/03/15

"K-Roll-PorscheTamer" (k-roll390) 06/04/2015 at 13:31 • Filed to: Dream Cruise, Woodward

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Yes, I know the Dream Cruise isn’t until August, but we had a special dream cruise for a very special person yesterday morning. The lot of us that cruised yesterday morning didn’t do so for the sake of cruising, but to fulfill a dying wish; Linda’s dying wish.

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First, a little background. Linda Woolard is a 66-year old car enthusiast. She used to own a Roadrunner back in the 60s. Unfortunately, she’s currently in hospice care. She had attended every Dream Cruise since the very first one, and feared she would not make it to this year’s in August, with possibly only days to live at best...

So her long-time friend, Christine Cope, took it upon herself to help make Linda’s final wish a reality: To cruise Wooward one last time. With the help of a local news station, Channel 7 WXYZ, word got out about this fantastic event, and celebration of an awesome person’s awesome wish and life. I got word of it on Facebook.

They were only expecting only 20 or so cars and people to show up....They underestimated the power of car enthusiasts!! :D

Over one hundred cars and people, myself included, ventured out to a parking lot off of Woodward to make her final wish a reality. We came from all over! From just down the street to Port Huron, Canada, and even New York! Linda’s family came all the way down from New York to partake in this event as well! As with most car meets here, I was the lone European car there, surrounded by all this freedom and ‘Murica; though a white MGB did show up at the end. But you know what, Domestic or JDM or Euro or classic or modern, it didn’t matter. We weren’t here to talk cars, we were here to drive with a purpose, to cruise for Linda.

Once everyone had arrived for the most part, one of the reps for the event took the time to thanks us all for being there, and give us the route for the cruise. We’d be cruising south down Woodward, passing Birmingham and going into Royal Oak, and doing a Michigan Left and heading back north to our final destination, an Italian family restaurant on Woodward big enough for everyone to park in at the end. Linda and Christine would be driving along side to watch all the cars roll by as they had done for decades. We did get some rules about not doing burnouts or spinning tires and stuff, but this is ‘Murica, and for this one occasion, I think we almost followed that rule..

(Look at this line!! It isn’t even a 1/4 of the cars that showed up!)

Thanks to Woodward’s excessive number of stoplights, the convoy did get split up quite often; being divided into many groups of cars. And construction met us near the turnaround point. There’s an underpass just before said turnaround, and just about everyone let loose at the bottom; the echo of ‘Murican big block freedoms could be heard miles away. It truly was a sight and sound to behold.

I followed most of the Mopars that were there and god damn do they sound fantastic in full stride in an underpass! Made me giggle some. If anything surprised me, it’s that no one got pulled over during this event; especially by the insane Royal Oak Police Department that seems to have nothing better to do than pull over car enthusiasts just about every single weekend; but that’s another story for another time maybe.

We all made it the destination, and a good time was had by all:

Linda and Christine did a final pass of all the cars in the lot. I snapped this picture as they were coming towards me.

(Linda and Christine, from left to right)

They stopped right at me and beckoned me forwards. Christine pulled me over and shook my hand and gave me a hug, I shook Linda’s hand as well; thanking me for being there and for being one of few young people there. They were overjoyed not only to see older generations of car enthusiasts, but to see there were a couple of the young enthusiasts such as myself around to cruise and show there’s still hope for us yet!

It just goes to show the human element of being a car enthusiast. It’s not always about the cars, makes or models; but the people, or person, and what we as a community can do for one another in times of need. And this is and will forever be one of those moments I’ll never forget. As it is times like these when you feel most like an enthusiast.

Here’s to you Linda.

Thanks for being awesome, and we’ll see you on the other side someday. You, and your Roadrunner.

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > K-Roll-PorscheTamer 06/04/2015 at 13:47

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I’m.....I’m currently.....ummm.......chopping onions. Yeah that’s the ticket!