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53 °F Forecast | Road Cams Sunday, April 10, 2005 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Health Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley SHOP OUR VALLEY AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Classified Place an ad TOP JOBS EXTRA Ashland News NIE Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Moving here? eSouthernOregon CUSTOMER SERVICE FAQ's Advertise with us Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend April 10, 2005 Stan Ridens of the Chetco Shrine Club greets spectators from his miniature Corvette during Saturday�s Pear Blossom Parade. Shriners say they ride in parades to bring attention to their hospitals and to have fun. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Funny cars Perennial crowd-pleasers at the Pear Blossom Parade, the Shriners were at it again this year, drawing plenty of laughs with their odd autos By BILL VARBLE Mail Tribune Ray Davidson pulls the choke and feathers the clutch, and the red 1937 Plymouth chugs onto Central Avenue and joins the main body of the Pear Blossom Parade heading slowly south. Davidson lets several fellow Shriners in a trolley get well ahead of him, then gives it the gas and zooms forward, his horn blaring ah-OOOga! He stops, shifts into reverse and shoots backwards, and people in the crowd lining the streets start cracking up. "Hey, which way you going?" one says. The old red Plymouth has two front ends. The front has a long nose, a grill, two front fenders, a windshield and a front seat. The rear has, well, a long nose, a grill, two front fenders, a windshield, a front seat. Shriner Reg Powell sits in the back front seat, facing, er, the direction the car has come from when it’s going forward. He holds a rear-facing steering wheel. Sometimes, when Davidson is driving backwards, Powell, who then appears to be driving, pulls his steering wheel off its column and shows it to the crowd in mock panic. Advertisement Davidson, Powell and dozens more Southern Oregon Shriners are again taking part in the Pear Blossom Parade, Medford’s annual party for itself. They come from around the Rogue Valley, from the coast, from as far north as Roseburg and as far east as Lakeview. "Our purpose is two-fold," says Dave Danforth, a Shriner from Fort Klamath. "One, to promote what we try to do with our children’s hospitals. And two, to have fun." To that end Shriners have brought miniature cars from Brookings, antique fire engines from Klamath Falls, go-karts from around the Rogue Valley. They started gathering on Clark Street near the railroad tracks at 8 in the morning, their hopes lifted by occasional bursts of sunshine and darkened by heavy clouds to the south and west. Some 50 groups preceded the Shriners in the parade, from Pear Blossom royalty to marching bands and floats to private businesspeople driving along in cars. In the staging area before the 11 a.m. start, Stan Ridens of the Chetco Shrine Club was desperately seeking volunteers to drive two of the club’s dozen mini-cars, tiny replicas of Corvettes and Camaros and Model T Fords and pickup trucks powered by Briggs and Stratton lawn mower engines. The Chetco contingent drives the little cars in parades all over Southern Oregon and Northern California. The go-kart contingent, guys from Medford and Grants Pass, was hoping extra hard for a dry day. "We do figure-eights and things," said Bill Wirch, 62. "We go 25 to 30 mph. If it rains it’s slick, and we don’t go." Shrines draw their members from Masonic lodges. All Shriners are Masons, but not all Masons are Shriners. Aside from the fraternal side, the groups’ main activity is to support 22 Shriners’ children’s hospitals in North America. Local Shriners sold the Hillah Temple in Ashland about 30 years ago and became the Medford-based Hillah Shriners, comprising 10 Shriner clubs from Lakeview to the coast. Many of these guys take part in parades from Klamath Falls to Bandon to Eureka, Calif., each year. The Chetco group even practices its mini-car maneuvers. It is a distinctly gray-haired group, Powell acknowledges. "People used to be joiners," he says. "We kind of passed over one whole generation. Now we’re seeing some younger people, but we haven’t turned the corner." There are about 1,000 Shriners in Southern Oregon. Davidson says the double-ender Plymouth used to belong to a drum corps. He thinks it was built in the 1940s. Somebody removed the back half of the body, then welded on another front half, facing backwards. The chassis is original. The car runs like, well, a 1937 Plymouth. "It’ll do better once it gets going," Davidson says. "When it gets warmed up you can gun it and hold the brake on and really make it sound like an old John Deere tractor." That’s because while the exhaust from five of the engine’s cylinders is routed through a regular muffler, the exhaust from one goes through a straight pipe, making the engine sound like an old one-lung farm machine. People from tots to geezers get a kick out of the car, but it’s often a delayed reaction. They see it coming as just another noisy old car with a funny horn. It’s when Davidson hits reverse that they do a double-take, and get it. "Are you coming or going?" people yell. "That car can’t make up its mind which way it’s going." "I’ve always had that problem," Powell calls. One woman steps out of the crowd and approaches Davidson. "Everybody’s wondering," she says. "Can you actually drive it from both ends?" Davidson considers his answer, decides to come clean. "No," he says. "That’s the first time anybody’s ever asked that," he says. After the parade he will drive the car home to Central Point, where it will sit until the next parade. Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail [email protected] Pear Blossom Parade winners Here are winners of the 2005 Pear Blossom Parade: Youth Floats 1st place: Rogue Valley YMCA. 2nd place: Chip Wright Champion Karate School. 3rd place: Miss Medford Royalty. Adult Floats 1st place: Sherm’s Thunderbird/Food 4 Less. 2nd place: Southern Oregon Federal Credit Union. 3rd place: Miss Kitty Volkswagen Homeless Pets. Walking Youth 1st place: TNT Cheer. 2nd place: Medford Pop Warner Cheerleaders. 3rd place: Samurai Fighting Arts. Equestrian Youth 1st place: Trail Dust Saddle Club. 2nd place: Eagle Horse Foundation. Walking Adults 1st place: Society of Creative Anachronism. 2nd place: Relay for Life. 3rd place: Sprint. Equestrian Adult 1st place: Jackson County Sheriff’s Mounted Posse. 2nd place: Jackson County Horsemen’s Association. 3rd place: Wells Fargo. Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback Student Loan Consolidation Conference Calls - $50/Month Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker, Trunk, Footlockers home equity loans helzberg Distance Education Diamonds Slippers Student Loans afsa teleconferencing Memory Foam Mattress w2 forms Tatoo Fasa Advertisement s