I’m married to a car guy. He talks about cars. He watches TV shows about cars … his profession? He’s a car dealer. He’s washed them, wholesaled them, retailed them, financed them…

When his Pop comes over, they talk about cars. When he gets off work, we talk cars. I have grown to also be an enthusiast by default of my married last name and I’d be left out of most conversations if I didn’t.

One of his first cars was an extremely cliché Pontiac Trans Am Firebird…I’ll be frowned upon for not knowing the other specifics of it (because I’m a doodle gal … not a car gal … but we will get in to that in a moment) because I genuinely haven’t a clue. It was white with a blue stripe down the middle and it was for lack of a better term … “Cool!” The American Dream. A new car. It helped that Pop owned the Pontiac dealership and he got a few spins in the latest and greatest of all the “cool” cars.

Flash forward 20 or so years later and our now-3-year-old already knows what a Tacoma, a Corvette, a Hummer, a Viper, even a Focus is. He rolls miniature cars up and down our halls at all times of the day. He’s a proud owner of 126 of these tiny cars and he takes inventory … regularly. I guess you can say it’s in his blood.

He’ll be wide eyed and dreamy come Saturday, March 6, as we make the two block trek to Downtown Brookhaven for the Annual Goin’ To Town Car Show as he sees his tiny little Hot Wheels come to life! T-Tommy will be heard over the loud speaker listing the latest door prize winner and the best-in-show or sweet-16s. From what you’ll find, should you join us downtown that day, and I hope you will, there are a LOT of car guys (and girls) that have the same admiration for vehicles of every kind!

The 3-year-old car enthusiast just mentioned has a big sister four years his elder. She, like her mother, wasn’t born with the same zeal for cars, but has grown to respect the auto-biz AND the 126 miniatures and politely obliges his persistent begs to roll them down the hall or run them down the track and out the back door in to the mud puddle (It is pretty fun if I must say so myself).

She is a “doodle bug.” She is solely responsible for at least one rainforest devastation from the countless pieces of construction paper that IF you “accidentally” toss in the trash she knows. Immediately.

“Why would you throw this away!? It’s ART!”

So we fish out the “art” of the day and pack it in the laundry room full of giant boxes of all of her other “art” we have “accidentally” tossed the day before. She sees the beauty in everything. In blades of grass, in the clouds, in the dirt, and ultimately, in her extremely imperfect parents.

The most recent storm has brought her a plethora of limbs to assemble in to some of her latest 3-D sculptures. Tiny cut out hearts are found in every corner of our home from her Valentine cards she made for the whole family. Modeling clay, markers of every-color-ever-named, chalk, glue, and yes even (dare I say) glitter … the global pandemic of craft items!

The Doodle Bug has her own event to look forward to now on the same day of her brother’s long awaited car show. She will get to stroll the streets of Whitworth and Cherokee and enjoy displays of the latest works of the Brookhaven Regional Arts Guild spearheaded by her buddy and art teacher Mr. Derek (fun fact: Mr. Derek is the son of T-Tommy who is responsible for the aforementioned car show).

She will dance like a tree in a hurricane in Railroad Park while listening to some live music and she and the little car guy will be filthy after coloring on the sidewalk during the chalk contest and eating a chocolate donut from our beloved Janie’s Pastry. I’ll beg them both not to get anywhere near those shiny Bel Airs or sparkling Camaros with their chalky-chocolate hands. We will later wander back the two blocks to the little blue house with the scratches up and down the hall from the tiny cars and I’ll no doubt be left to clean up the mess from another masterpiece from her latest inspiration from the art walk.

Two worlds living in harmony. The car guy and the doodle bug.

The Goin’ To Town Car Show and BRAG’s Art Walk are Saturday, March 6, 2021. Both events are FREE to the Public.

Katie Nations is program director of the Brookhaven-Lincoln County Chamber of Commerce.