Unforeseen Events: Day 12

Word Count: 72,040

Summary of Events:

Sheldon went outside by himself for a bit and ended up being inadvertently locked out of the house by Emil, but not for too long. Emil and Sheldon went to the big car show in Saskatoon and witnessed an accident at the entrance gate when a man tried to cut in front of someone else and got his car smashed. While looking at the cars Sheldon and Emil encountered one of Emil's army friends — who had also been one of his groomsmen — showing his 1933 Dodge truck; they talked for some time before continuing on . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

"Sheldon followed Grandpa back into the flow of people surveying the trucks.

"He was at your wedding, wasn't he?" Sheldon asked.

"One of the groomsmen, yes," Grandpa replied.

"I thought he looked familiar," Sheldon said.

"Yeah, even if age does change the features a little bit, you can still see the person that was in there," Grandpa said. "Although sometimes having a carbon copy helps."

"Carbon copy?" Sheldon asked.

"I'll have to show you the old photo albums," Grandpa replied. "Then you'll understand."

Sheldon nodded. He wanted to know what a carbon copy even was. He knew the government had carbon taxes, and that carbon dioxide was either what cars put out their exhaust pipes or what people exhaled, and that carbonation made pop fizzy, but none of those things had to do with copying.

He had a feeling he was the carbon copy; he'd noticed — especially in Grandpa's wedding picture — that the two of them looked pretty similar, even now they were practically the same height.

It was funny, though, Sheldon had to admit. Back home everyone had gone on and on about how much he looked like Dad: tall, well filled-out even for fifteen, sultry blue eyes, prominent cheekbones, chiseled jaw, luscious brown hair, but yet according to that picture he looked like Grandpa.

Dad wasn't Grandpa's son. Mom was his daughter. It made Sheldon wonder if Grandpa was somehow related to some Gallaghers closely enough that the same traits could be prominent on both sides of the family and leave him looking like both of them.

Sheldon shook his head and turned his attention back to the trucks. It was incredible to see this many old vehicles close up, all cleaned up and shiny like this, they really looked nice, even if they were ancient.

It got him excited, next year he and Grandpa might be here with the Pontiac, and she would look just as beautiful as these trucks — if not even more beautiful — and he would be able to inform people that he'd helped.

Seeing as it was mostly old guys, or guys that were old enough to be his father, Sheldon was pretty sure that might impress some people, it had certainly seemed to have impressed Mr. Graham that he was involved.

Sheldon wondered if people would be surprised that they brought her back to life after sitting for a good forty five years, or if more of these vehicles had sat that long, rusting away, until someone had decided to restore them to new condition and show people just how beautiful old vehicles could be.

He had to admit, he'd not really seen vehicles this old that often, and he'd always thought of the old cars he'd seen in traffic as outdated, and wondered why the people who drove them didn't get new cars, but even if he still wasn't sold on the idea of cars from the eighties being beautiful, he was totally sold on the idea of vehicles older than that being beautiful."