The 2007 Vernonia Flood and Muscle Car Friendship Jamboree

PART I

This sign was erected recently during the annual Vernonia Friendship Jamboree (more on that later!) The high water mark records a height of "over six feet" --and--for the record--that's a LOT of water to overtake a town!

There is something soul-binding for a town full of people who have all survived a natural disaster such as this. While not as epic as something like Hurricane Katrina, it was extreme in it's own right. 

There is an analogy used in some recovery circles which compares  sobriety to surviving a shipwreck. You and your fellow passengers all share in a common peril and yet your own experience of that peril is unique. This opens up a different type of communication. These types of events are what creates community bonds and within Vernonia there is a palpable feeling of community and connection.

That may sound a little sappy, but it's true. When my husband and I were looking for some place to live outside of Portland, we meandered all over the North and the West part of Oregon. (Why? Because North feels right and West feels right, but South and East do not.) We investigated Scappoose, Clatskanie, Birkenfeld, Ranier, Deer Island, Buxton, Timber, Cathlamet, and even  Astoria to name a few. Oregon is a damn beautiful state-- I will tell you that--but we fell in love with Vernonia pretty fast and kept coming back. When we found the property we wanted, we prayed everything would work out. It was a major cluster-fuck to be honest--there were so many problems, but a year later we were proud landowners (a first for me!)

​One of the things that immediately caught our attention in Vernonia--and holds it-- was this:

These are some of the cars one might run across at Meyer's Body Shop. The two Road Runners are permanently displayed inside the shop, and I happen to know the black GTX outside belongs to the owner, Gary Meyer. I think the 440 is gone now--I haven't seen it in a while--so I assume it belonged to a customer. I get excited every time we drive by his shop--I never know what's going to be there.

(When there was small flood this past spring, Rich and I spent a few hours driving out to Vernonia to see how our then future property fared [it was fine]. Driving through town we noticed that the two Road Runners had been moved out of the shop. To this day I cannot figure out how he did that.)

When Gary Meyer saw Rich and I drooling over "his" cars he was kind enough to take us on a tour of the shop. There was some fun stuff in there:

It's a Muscle Car Friendship Jamboree!

For the record I have always loved cars in general, I come from a long line of car thieves and enthusiasts. I just happened to luck-out that the man I fell in love with is more than a car-thief (he's not) or enthusiast. He's a car owner, and builder and encyclopedic knowledge storer. We've been married one and a half years now and he still says stuff like: "I think I'm going to take the Dart out of storage and make sure it's ok." and I had no idea he even owned a TWO-TONE 1962 DODGE DART THREE SPEED TORQUE FLIGHT TRANSMISSION--push button tranny! MOPAR! This still happens! It happened last week with some vintage Dodge Power Wagon!
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Behold--I am it's step-mom:

I have veered away from my main topic of the 2007 Vernonia Flood. To be continued!