Duke, my colorful road buddy, my fondest four-fendered friend. Typewriter hood-ornament, rubber ducky with Barbie doll arms, a trail of blue smoke at every stoplight. A public graffiti car, Duke's body is swaddled in a dozen or so layers of multi-colored house paint, bullhorns, Barbie doll heads and plastic cowboys and indians. His eviscerated dash is filled with everything from beach stones and nude trolls to my cub scout uniform pins and patches, and pistol ammo casings stuck in a lava bed of hardened spray foam insulation. Duke is a 1976 Ford Granada with a soul, one of a rare breed of art cars lending relaxed smiles to the hurry-up-and-wait freeway faces of America.

Picture this: It's a Wednesday in mid-April in a snowstorm sixty road miles and 6,000 feet up from Palm Springs. I'm sweating in long johns, jeans and a down jacket as I shovel, repeatedly, parallel paths in the snow for the sake of four bald tires and their struggle to move my art car sixty feet up a slight grade to the freedom of a paved street. It takes a lot of imagination to shovel snow to move a car filled with snow and pine needles to the street and think, "Whippee! In a few days, my feet won't be soaked and cold. In a few days, this car without a windshield or a single roadworthy tire, this car adorned with faded house paint, this car that's been sitting for eight months untuned or cared for is going on the road 3500 miles round trip to Houston, Texas with a dozen other wild cars and I'm gonna get a sun tan! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!" A lot of imagination.

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Last update April 1, 2004