If they handed out Academy Awards for the Rods and Rhodies Classic Car Show over the weekend, the weather would have received one for the best supporting role Saturday. Temperatures neared 80 degrees and there was plenty of sunshine to go around as pedestrians strolled up and down a closed three-block section of Bay Street in Old Town. 120 high-line classics and antiques lined both sides of the street all day Saturday and then again yesterday.
Many of the cars cruised through Old Town Saturday evening, preceded by a commemoration of the tenth anniversary of 9-11. Members of Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue, Western Lane Ambulance and Florence Police were joined by representatives from Coast Guard Siuslaw River Station. Later that evening, while a street dance was taking place at the Gazebo, the infield at Miller Park was filled with cars for the second annual KCFM Drive-Movie to benefit the Boys and Girls Club.
While the weather didn’t make an encore performance yesterday, the cars and the crowds did.
The change in the weather yesterday added a bit of a somber note to the tenth anniversary of the attacks that took place on September 11th, 2001. Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue volunteers and staff turned out at eight AM yesterday for a ceremony to remember the 343 firefighters that perished when the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed.
At 11, just prior to the closing ceremonies for the Rods and Rhodies, organizers had a moment of silence for the nearly 3,000 victims of that day; people who died at the towers, at the Pentagon and in the crash of United flight 93.
There’ll be another observance this evening… as Mo’s Restaurant will hold their Fish and Chips for Firefighters fund raiser from four until eight PM.
