Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hi, everyone, this is Dawn Klem, and you are on my podcast, Milkweed and Monarchs.
[00:00:09] I have a great story for you today.
[00:00:14] So it was not a far stretch for me to marry my husband, and part of the reason why is he was very similar to my dad in so many ways.
[00:00:26] They both absolutely loved cars, and they love car races especially.
[00:00:34] So I can still remember. I don't even. I think I was in the first grade, so kindergarten and the first grade, and maybe made it to the second grade. We always went to Butler Motor Speedway near Hillsdale. I don't even know where it's located, actually.
[00:00:54] We would go to the stock car races with my dad, I and my brother. I mean, we were little, but I absolutely hated it. Not the race, but the noise. Oh, my God, so loud. You know what I mean? Very, very loud.
[00:01:12] I would always say to my mom, okay, I'm gonna go, but I need to have earplugs, mom.
[00:01:19] So my mom ended up getting me earplugs. And I think at sometimes I even wore ear muffs while I was there. But it was a great family event, and my dad and my mom really enjoyed it.
[00:01:33] The unfortunate thing, though, was that the last time we went, one of the racers ran into the wall and had a bad accident, and he ultimately ended up getting killed.
[00:01:48] And so that was the end of stock car racing for us.
[00:01:53] But if you have listened to any of my podcasts, you know that my dad eventually ended up being the sales manager at a local Buick dealership in Hillsdale. And he started out, really, he worked as a mechanic for a very long time at different locations.
[00:02:15] Then he got hired at this dealership to be the mechanic.
[00:02:20] Then he was over that department.
[00:02:24] Then he went into sales, used car sales. He was doing great at that department. They made him the manager, and then ultimately he became the manager of the whole dealership. Sales manager.
[00:02:39] He loved cars.
[00:02:41] We didn't even own a car. I know. That's so hard to believe. My mom never got her driver's license till I got mine when I was 16.
[00:02:51] She never drove that whole entire time, but.
[00:02:56] And my dad would just bring home a different car every day from the dealership, so we never. We didn't need a car. I mean, when I look back on it, I think, wow, you know, in a lot of ways, that was kind of cool.
[00:03:09] So when I got my license, though, my dad decided that we did need another car.
[00:03:18] And my mom, he'd been driving us to school and been driving my mom to work every day.
[00:03:25] So my mom was looking forward to having a car for a little freedom for herself. I mean, she could go to the grocery store by herself for gosh sakes. Right?
[00:03:34] You know, this is the 60s and times were different then. I would absolutely die if I didn't have a mode of transportation. I can't even imagine it.
[00:03:44] But we spent a lot of time looking at cars, going to car shows, going to antique car shows. I mean that was very familiar to me when I was growing up.
[00:03:58] So then flash forward and I meet my husband.
[00:04:02] He absolutely loves cars too. Absolutely loves them. He's not a mechanic by any stretch of the imagination, but he did buy a Mini Cooper one year from a dealership actually in Hillsdale. And he rebuilt the whole thing so he maybe he could be a mechanic if he wanted to. It's more that he just likes to putter and he loves cars. With the Mini Cooper we have gone every other year to Mini on the Mac in Mackinac Island. We're trying to break the world's Guinness Book of Worlds record of beating. I think it's like close to 14,000 cars going over a bridge.
[00:04:50] And a couple of times we've been really close. We've gotten 12, I think at one point.
[00:04:57] And we're going back again this year because that's what we do. It's so much fun. There's so many people there. Can you imagine 12,000 mini Coopers going over the Mecca Knob Bridge? I have tons of pictures of it and it's just so much fun.
[00:05:14] Well, he loves cars and he also loves. He had a motorcycle when I first started dating him, he didn't have a Harley Davidson, he had the, I think they called it a crotch rocket. Sorry for that term, but that's what they called it. And it was a Suzuki.
[00:05:34] And so he would go with his buddies. There were like six or seven of them, including his brother on these long motorcycle trips. And they would go up to Canada every year. We were living in Maine, so everybody would gather at our house and then they drive the four hour drive up to Canada and then drive all around and they had such a great time with that.
[00:06:01] Then he decided, oh, maybe I'm getting too old to really ride this kind of a bike.
[00:06:07] So he ended up getting into snowmobiles. Well, I've been snowmobiling my whole life. I mean, when I was in the sixth, seventh and eighth grade, we had the Tip Up Festival on Bobby's Lake in Hillsdale and we would get up, get our snowmobile suit on and we would snowmobile from 7 o' clock in the morning till 10 o' clock at night. We didn't even really eat that much. I don't even think we thought about eating. We'd go across the lake, we'd go into the woods. I mean, we just had such a great time. Two of my friends, male friends, each had a snowmobile. And I was always on the back of one of their snowmobiles and tons of other friends, too. We just had the greatest time.
[00:06:59] So when my husband's getting this snowmobile, I'm like, yeah, that sounds great. He's, you know, not even upset about it because I've been snowmobiling. I was indoctrinated, right? So here's just another thing where we had this commonality.
[00:07:15] Well, he didn't keep the snowmobile for too long. He would go to Canada again, snowmobiling. His uncle and his. His aunt and uncle, his uncle's son, his cousin, my husband's cousin and his wife would bring their snowmobiles up. Then Craig's dad ended up getting a snowmobile and the younger brother, so there were three brothers, and then Craig's brother Doug. So there were quite a few of them up there snowmobiling.
[00:07:48] And then one time they had an accident. His dad and his younger brother and his dad actually had to go to the hospital to get checked out to make sure everything was okay. And that kind of gave his dad a downturn on snowmobiling. And so Craig decided, well, it was a good run, but I think I'm going to start looking into other things.
[00:08:15] So anything with a motor makes him happy. Lawnmowers, whatever. He likes motors. Okay?
[00:08:24] So one year after we moved. Oh, and I should say, too, really, this is important.
[00:08:30] When we moved back to Michigan, he was ecstatic that he was near the Motor City.
[00:08:37] So he took our two daughters to the car show in Detroit every single year. I think they were like, you know, in the seventh and ninth grade when they started going. And it didn't stop him. He took them every single year. I didn't go. I'm like, you go, I've seen cars all my life. Okay.
[00:09:01] But the one year we decided to go to Chicago, we went to Chicago to their auto show, and I went to that one. And that was incredible.
[00:09:12] It's just incredible. It was a lot of fun.
[00:09:15] So flash forward now, we're kind of over the whole thing with cars, right?
[00:09:26] We've done been there, done it. We're. We're ready to move on.
[00:09:32] Not according to my daughters.
[00:09:35] So the Christmas of 2014.
[00:09:41] They got two tickets to the Indianapolis 500 for Craig for Christmas. I thought Craig was going to have a heart attack.
[00:09:52] It was the 99th year of the Indianapolis running and he was so excited to go.
[00:10:04] I was excited too. I was excited. I thought, oh, this is going to be kind of fun. You know, I haven't been to a racetrack in a long time.
[00:10:14] I'm, I'm really up for it. This is going to be a lot of fun. We were going to make a whole weekend out of it.
[00:10:22] He likes to watch. He's a big fan of Formula One racing and he also likes IndyCar.
[00:10:35] So those are the two that he's always followed. He loves Ferrari and one of our goals is to actually get to a formula one racing event.
[00:10:46] We've we there in Florida now, Texas and one other place I think in the US and we, we thought, yeah, you know, he's not retired yet, I am, but I think that's something that we could look into and I know that would just make him so happy.
[00:11:04] So anyhow, here we are.
[00:11:07] We've made hotel reservations for the night before.
[00:11:11] Indianapolis is about a four hour drive from our house. So we were going to go down, go to the hotel, go out to a nice dinner.
[00:11:21] We were all excited. I had this outfit all picked out. I had the hat and sunglasses and I was going to be so cool sitting in the stands.
[00:11:33] It was, we were excited. We were really, really excited. And Craig just kept saying to the girls, I can't believe you got me tickets. I, I just can't believe it. This is one of the best gifts I've ever gotten. It really was really my younger daughter that came up with the idea. She is such a great gift giver. She definitely thinks about who you are as a person and then she tries to match it up with something that she knows will be special for you.
[00:12:10] And this was really over the top.
[00:12:13] She, she thought about it for a long time and then she came up with this idea.
[00:12:19] So the day comes, it's Friday. We've both taken the day off from work and we're getting ready, you know, all packed up, ready to go down. We had an uneventful trip down there and we go straight to the hotel. We get everything unpacked and we're like, well, where do you want to go to eat?
[00:12:44] And there was an Applebee's, which was very close. Not like a nice dinner, but we like Applebee's just for a casual dinner. Go relax, you know, and we don't need anything Big.
[00:12:58] So we decide we're gonna go there.
[00:13:01] So we get there and we had, you know, nothing out of the ordinary. He had a couple of beers, I had a glass of wine, and we ate our meals and we went home. And we were all excited, you know, looking at all the events.
[00:13:18] He always brings his laptop wherever we go. So he's looking at all the events, you know, and when we need to be there and where we're going to park, all that kind of thing.
[00:13:30] So we go to bed. We're going to go to bed early. It's about 10 o' clock and about 2 o' clock in the morning.
[00:13:38] I wake up and I've got a stomach ache.
[00:13:43] I'm like, what? No, this can't be happening. Maybe I just have to go to the bathroom.
[00:13:48] So I go to the bathroom.
[00:13:52] It was not pretty.
[00:13:54] I ended up realizing that I had gotten food poisoning.
[00:13:59] And as my mother would say, it was coming out of me at both ends. So my head's in the waste basket and I'm on the toilet doing my other.
[00:14:12] And.
[00:14:12] And it was terrible. I think I was up the whole rest of the night sicker than a dog.
[00:14:20] So we had gone to Applebee's and I got food poisoning. That's. That's the long and short of it. And it was so unfortunate. We were so excited to be at this event, but I'm like, okay, Don, you're gonna suck it up. You are gonna get over yourself. You are not going to ruin this day.
[00:14:40] I got dressed. I'm all set to go. I go, maybe I spent so much time in the bathroom that it's not going to carry over to the event when we get there.
[00:14:52] So we drive over and we parked in a neighborhood. There's not a lot of parking there at all.
[00:15:00] The racetrack is, like, right in the middle of the. All these neighborhoods. So you're just figuring out where you're gonna park. Like any main event, you're parking in somebody's yard and paying five bucks to park or whatever. We paid 15 bucks to park, and we. There was a space in front of us. So he actually talked to the guy and said, you're not going to park anybody in front of me. Oh, no, I'm not going to park anybody in front of you. You don't have to worry about that. Yeah, we were just so excited about going that we're like, whatever. We're going to take our chances.
[00:15:36] So we're walking along.
[00:15:39] Let me tell you something.
[00:15:41] It was the biggest trash pit I have ever seen. And I've been to so many different events in my life, as all of you have, but I have never seen so much litter and trash in my life on the sidewalks, in the street.
[00:16:03] I mean, it was ridiculous. I just couldn't believe it. And the whole time we're walking, I'm thinking to myself, if this is what it looks like before we've even gotten to the park, the racetrack park, what are the bathrooms going to look like? Cuz all I'm thinking about is, am I going to be living in the bathroom during the Indy 500, right? So terrible.
[00:16:30] But let me just keep walking. And I'm saying to him, I have never seen such a mess in my entire life. This is disgusting.
[00:16:39] This is just disgusting. And I actually commented on it to one of the other fans and she that was walking with us and she says, it's like this every year. Everybody parties so hard and they just, they just trash this whole area. I go, that's disgusting. I just, I don't know, you think it could be a little bit more respectful for the event.
[00:17:03] But anyhow, we finally get to the park, we get in, it's not so easy.
[00:17:08] And I spot out the bathroom right away because I go, I'm. I'm gonna need it, right?
[00:17:14] We get to our seats and I'm like, I'm gonna. I think I should go. I want to go right now so I don't have to worry about it.
[00:17:22] So I get in there and I'm like, oh my God, please, God, let's make this quick. Of course I have a whole nother episode again.
[00:17:32] Vomiting and you know what, feeling like complete dirt.
[00:17:38] But I said, I've held all this down for such a long time. I'm hoping that this is going to be the last time.
[00:17:47] So. Because it's been about four hours since my last episode.
[00:17:52] So I get back up in the stands with him and he bought me some of that lemon ice. He thought that might calm my stomach down.
[00:18:00] And actually it did, but I was completely wiped out.
[00:18:05] Wiped out.
[00:18:07] And I mean, I feel so bad for him because here he is at the biggest event. I had definitely have to make it up to him by taking him to a Formula one race, something that he had been looking forward to for so, so long.
[00:18:26] And here I am, sicker than a dog in the stands. It's just terrible.
[00:18:32] So anyhow, we get through the day.
[00:18:39] I think I spent most of my time sleeping through the Indianapolis 500.
[00:18:45] Even the noise of the cars did not bother me.
[00:18:50] I just was not going to make it through just too tough of a night.
[00:18:57] But he was in his element and he was so happy.
[00:19:03] And there is one other thing I should mention. He did competitive racing himself. He was a motocross racer when he was in his 20s. And we still have all of his trophies. Both of us are collectors, as you can tell by now, but we just collect things that were important to us at the time because it gives us good memories. And I've got a ton of photos of him racing motocross too.
[00:19:30] So here he is at the biggest event of his life with his wife. I'm all dressed up in this cute outfit, sicker than a dog. I don't even think I opened my eyes one time. I just put my sunglasses on and pulled the hat over my, my forehead and just tried to sleep. During the Indianapolis 500.
[00:19:53] And we made it through all the laps. I think it was like maybe the second lap left and we decided we were going to go back to the car.
[00:20:04] He was so happy.
[00:20:06] To me, it was worth it. Didn't matter that I was sick. He got to go, he got to see it, he got to experience it live. We had great seats. There's no bad seats there.
[00:20:20] And it. And the crowd went wild. And it really was a great time.
[00:20:25] And we got back to the car. I never had another episode again.
[00:20:30] And guess what? We were blocked in.
[00:20:34] Can you believe that? That guy of course lied.
[00:20:38] And so we were blocked in. And I go, I gotta, I'm just gonna continue to sleep. So he goes, maybe I'll take a little nap too. So we slept for an hour and no one showed up for the car in front of us. We still could not get out.
[00:20:54] And then finally I think the car, the guy came and moved his car. And of course it was bumper to bumper to get out at that point.
[00:21:05] So frustrating, so frustrating. Because it was one of those things where you just wanted it to be the perfect, perfect event for him because he had wanted to go.
[00:21:20] And he was so excited.
[00:21:23] He, he always tells me now he goes, I should have been born in Michigan. I don't know why I wasn't born in Michigan. I just love it here. I love all the car shows, I love the car races. I love everything about it. And the last place he worked at, friend actually was. Has a stock car.
[00:21:44] So for the first time since I was in the second grade, I went back to the stock car races with him.
[00:21:52] And oh my gosh, we had such a good time. The noise didn't even bother me. It didn't bother me one bit. And it was so much fun. It just brought back so many happy memories being with my mom and my dad, my brother. I absolutely loved it and we had a great time and it was even cooler because we knew somebody that was in the races.
[00:22:15] So I hope that the next time I'm telling you a story about car racing, it's going to be because we've been to Formula One.
[00:22:30] Thank you for listening to my podcast today.
[00:22:33] I hope you enjoyed it.
[00:22:35] I hope you enjoyed Got a laugh out of the misery I had lived through.
[00:22:42] But it's a good story and it's a good memory to hang on to. You know, it's. It's one of those things that I'll always look back on finally.
[00:22:57] Still working on the revision to my web page. But if you have a story that you would like me to share, or if you'd like to tell your story yourself, just email me at Dawn D A W nilkmon m I L-K-M-N.com all one word and just leave me a message and I'll be happy to get back to you.
[00:23:28] I am happy to report that I actually sold my first canvas bag and that felt really good.
[00:23:35] So that's exciting too. I still have some available. If anybody is interested in purchasing one, just let me know. Same way to communicate with me. Dawn milkmon.com until the next time.
