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Jaguars

My family has been friends with the Thompsons for many years.  Cindy and Chris will remember fall and spring weekends spent at field trials with the Kansas City Retriever Club.  When I became old enough to worry about such things and actually had some money in my pocket, I remembered that I had always had an interest in old Jaguars, especially the E-types, and I remembered that Charles had one of those fabled cars.  So I went to a few Jaguar shows and paid particular attention to Charles lovely silver E-type.  He would come over and counsel me and got my interest piqued to the point where I finally took the plunge and got into the weird, wonderful world of Jaguar cars.  Not only that, through a series of purchases, trades, sales, etc. that I won't bore you with, I ended up with an E-type similar to, but in no way in as good a condition as Charles' car.  We would spend time together at shows in town talking about the cars and other things and we took a few road trips together for shows in different places.  Charles loved to talk about the cars and share their virtues with just about anyone who would listen.  Anyone who has met Peggy, the Thompson family, seen their home on LIberty Drive, or seen his favored Jags knows that Charles had an eye for beauty and the belief that a job worth doing is worth doing right. 

In the Museum of Modern Art in New York there is an automobile on put display there a few years ago not as an automobile, the Museum of Modern Art is not a car museum, it is an art museum, and the car is there as a work of art.  That car is an E-type Jaguar.  Charles recognized this beauty and this art long before the Museum of Modern Art did.

In closing,I remember if kids were around at car shows he would ask them if they had even seen a V-12 engine before.  Then he would open the bonnet to reveal a huge, gleaming V-12 without a spec of grease on it and the kids eyes would become the size of small plates.  Of course the first question out of their mouths was, "How fast will it go?"  Charles used to say, "It's fast enough it'll pin your ears back."  I'm sure today Charles is in heaven pinning St. Peter's ears back.

 

Posted by Jon Mensie
Monday February 22, 2016 at 9:01 pm
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