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 ST. CLAIR SHORES, Mich. -- One of the best aspects of the annual Harper Cruise in St. Clair Shores is its accessibility. All vehicles, from family mini vans and SUVS to hot rods and classics, share the five-lane road and move along at a good pace.
The two-plus-mile cruise is a Kiwanis Club fund raiser. Want to examine a cruiser more closely? Put your lawn chair at an intersection with a traffic light and think "red." Or you can stop by the parking lots of the small businesses that line Harper Avenue between Base Line and 11 Mile Road, where cruisers sometimes park for a little or a long while. The latter squeezed themselves onto the drive and back lawn at Forton's Mower Service both because it was a great place to chat with friends and because the proprietor annually puts out an evening spread that includes tomatoes from the garden behind the workshop. Forton serves the food for free but asks his many guests to make a "donation." "My party raised $2,300 this year," said the hot rod specialist who, with other Michigan Hot Rod Association members, puts together the annual Autorama show at Cobo Hall. The partying was cut short this year by yet another August thunderstorm which began to loom in the west shortly after 6 p.m. and had people running for cover by 7:30. Frank Pryg of Macomb Township was wrong when he predicted the wet stuff was still an hour away, when 30 minutes was a better guess. Pryg had parked his red 1938 Chevrolet Deluxe behind the mower repair facility. Pryg has owned the two-door Chevy for about 30 years. He did much of the work on the car, including cutting into the original trunk space and installing his own rumble seat. "We completed an 11,000-mile trip in 'Big Red' back in 1991," said Pryg, a member of the Michigan Hot Rod Association. Moments before the rain descended, Charles Anderson was talking with an interested bypasser from the driver's seat in his 1951 Opel coupe. Anderson, of Eastpointe, figured his beige-and-brown Opel was quite rare. He has owned it for 20 years. Big Bill Large's 1948 Mercury convertible was among the most elegant - and investment-heavy - vehicles outside the mower repair shop and "conversation center." "Bill must have put $100,000 into that car," Forton said of the Washington, Mich.-based owner.
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