My friend Chuck Farnham is an eccentric. Certifiable, he made a living and reputation off being eccentric for about a decade. Now it’s just a hobby. I may get back to that history some day, but let’s talk about last night.
Chuck most recently worked for, I’m not making this up, a branch of US Homeland Security. Again, not going to get into that any deeper than to say due to an on-the-job injury he’s got some time on his hands. (He’s talking about retraining with the CIA… actually the Culinary Institute of America.)
So he bought a 1968 VW Beetle, renovated it, and made himself a Herbie. He drove it over last night.
We’ve done a lot of whacky stuff, from videotaping dumpster-diving excursions in Cupertino to some stuff in Las Vegas that will have to wait for the memoirs. So let’s just say that when he told me he was going to do it I wasn’t really on board. "Yeah Chuck, that will be fun, sure." However, seeing it… I’m very impressed. He’d done up all the details, even the custom headlight hoods.
If there’s one thing Mr Farnham knows how to do it’s draw a crowd, and this thing draws a crowd. There were people standing on their lawns checking it out, coming over to admit their love, we have’t had that much neighborhood activity without a patrol car involved in quite a while! In the fading light of evening it was neighborhood photo op time!