As most of you know, drag racing is a large part of my life. Many years ago as a 14 year old kid I went to my first drag race, helping out a friend who was just starting to race. This was when there was just an annual High School Drags rather than a high school class each week. I remember seeing a family that had some pretty cool cars, and their youngest son was racing the high school drags. Other kids were talking about them, some reverently, some scoffing out of jealousy. All of them seemed to agree that the family patriarch was a wealthy pig farmer from the outskirts of Vancouver. It seemed to fit, as the dad was wearing coveralls but had some really cool cars. I went over and chatted with him, and he was an extremely nice guy, very welcoming to all the car questions I had (keep in mind, I did not grow up in a family of car enthusiasts like so many of you did). That warm welcome was one of the key reasons I decided to start drag racing. Over the years he and his family proved to be great friends, and more than once a hand me down part came out of their trailer and onto my car, with a BS story that he was going to throw it away anyway and I was doing him a favor by taking it. It turned out he owned a septic service rather than being a pig farmer, but as he joked when I told him about it later, it smells about the same. Every Last Saturday Before Christmas he and his wife would open up their home for a wonderful breakfast gathering, and he would be there wearing colorful Christmas socks and cooking sausage and waffles all morning. They would arrange for a visit from Santa along with gifts for all of the kids present. Last night as we got home from the races I learned that Bob Comeau had passed away. His car Ol Gold is a drag racing icon (and not just in our area), and that son from that high school drag race is Paul N Vicki Comeau, who drove that car to the division championship and almost to a national championship a few years ago (always with Katryn Comeau there helping out). We were all devastated to learn a few months ago that Bob was diagnosed with a brain tumor (at the same time my dad was diagnosed as well). My dads turned out to be benign, but Bobs was malignant. I was fortunate to catch Bob on one of his good days as he was in the hospital, and spent the afternoon there reminiscing (including a pig farmer joke or two). While I am so sad that we wont get to enjoy his company and friendship here any more, I know that someone so pure and kind at heart got to take the express lane straight to Heaven, where he is building another 39 Chevy there with his son Danny and grandson Kyle Comeau Memorial.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 17:23:24 +0000
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