CAR BUFFS & FRIENDSHIPS

Like so many who have discovered the cultural aspect that accompanies an interest in cars, some of my fondest memories in high school surrounded fun moments with fellow car buffs. Here my fellow auto-shop class buddy, Malcolm Arnold, is climbing out of the passenger side window at the "Dairy Queen" drive-through in Granada Hills, Calif.

While Malcolm was the star center on our All-City football team at Granada Hills High, his other interests included girls and fast cars -- two other subjects in which we found seemingly endless fascination. While high-school auto shop was where we leaned about "cars"; hanging out at places like "Dairy Queen" were where we learned about "girls."

There were about a dozen guys in the Granada Hills High School auto shop who got together at our school's noon-time lunch break to head off to Dairy Queen (including Jim Hignite, John Terry, Craig Bockman, Rick Cole, Dave Ide, Jeff Dixon and Craig Haworth -- as well as hot rodders who'd graduated ahead of us like Bill Steck and Webster Smith) and weekends at our local drag strips: Irwindale Raceway and Orange County ... and, of course, a few spontaneous match-ups at the then-deserted "Sesnon Road" at the trail-edge of the northern San Fernando Valley. Though sometimes these match-ups would spark and roll right on our local and world-famous "cruise strip" of Van Nuys Boulevard.