A guy up in Easley, SC operates a museum that attempts to preserve the history of the very early days of Stock Car racing. Every year he has this big barbecue to celebrate the birthday of Raymond Parks, the Georgia businessman who owned the race car that won the very first NASCAR race in 1948 and also the owner of the very first NASCAR championship winning race car in 1949. Mr. Parks is 95 years old and still comes over from Atlanta to attend. Anyway, when I was gathering up stuff to bring last night (a group of us set up a booth with a display of our vintage NASCAR model cars) my wife asked me who Raymond Parks was. I explained just as I did above, so the next question she asked was, “What kind of business was he in?”
I answered, “Mainly illegal liquor and gambling machines!”
She sort of gasped, and I added, “His legitimate business was distributing candy and tobacco vending machines, but the real money was in illegal liquor and gambling machines.”
That old man must have a portrait aging in his attic. I hope I’m still breathing at age 95, let alone look as well preserved as he does. Maybe I should drink some corn liquor every day? I took a couple of photos, the one at the end of the entry turned out best. The weather was almost ideal, it was a little warm in the afternoon but we had a folding shelter to keep us in the shade and the museum is built right on the bank of the Saluda river so there was a nice cool breeze most of the time. I didn’t get home until 8 PM, as I drove home I saw one of the brightest rainbows I’ve seen in a long time with a much dimmer second rainbow beside it. I took a photo of that also, if it captured the rainbow clearly.

And Mr. Raymond Parks at age 95:
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