Note: this report is quite large because I've been home sick from work
for two weeks and had nothing else to do than working with this. =)
The message from Tommy that ignited it all!
"Maybe we should arrange a TBDGIT crayfish party when your US friends are here.
We invite a helluva gang. SWEDISH CRAYFISH PARTY"
Said and done.
Now we had to clean up and get some order in The Best Damn Garage In Town. Tommy with the scrub
machine four seconds before it went to the scrub machine heaven, then we continued manually.
Kenneth Feldthusen lent some 50 chairs to us and delivered it in a trailer which Mr Al Holt took
care of. He gave a helping hand with the party preparations these days since he was around anyway
because we were also finishing the preparation of the Blackout SS for the Santa Pod trip.
Agneta jumped into the car two days ago together with her daddy Thore and drove away halfway into
Sweden to Lasse who has traps in lake Vättern, to fish the crayfish herself to be able to hand pick
BIG and FRESH ones! The sea crayfish was then bought from a local fisherman in Gothenburg.
Chef Agneta Rooth also planned, bought and arranged the buffet, she wanted to serve a lot of seafood.
Here she is boiling the Blue mussels and adds white wine and other who knows good stuff into it to
follow the proven french recipe of Moules marinière. Yes it is a garage, it's TBDGIT.
Axel and Celeste helped to present the crayfish. All helped the last hour before the scheduled party start.
Guests too, if they were early like Linda from Södertälje. Her boyfriend Gordon helped us to test the beer.
Mingling, awaiting all to arrive. It was a very very good blend of drag racers and normal humans!
Do you know what hard core racers like Kenneth Feldthusen and Lars-Inge Johansson talk about when
they meet? Their race cars? No, their transport buses! It was easy to find the way to the Crazy Razy...
"Hats on!" Welcoming bla bla from the organizers just to get everybody's focus to get a better effect
of the surprise that already was on its way at this time...
Start signal! Revving race cars arrive directly from the street to the doorstep!
Frank Gudmundsen in his 500 ci AA/A Comp Trans Am and Michael Karlsson in his 1915 cc VW!
Applauses and cheers! That certainly got all hearts pumpin' and the spirits high! IT'S PARTY TIME!
The line formed very quickly to the fresh seafood buffet.
All you can eat! Click it!
Sharp Dressed Man Lars-Inge Johansson and Ann-Sofie Karlsson came from Stockholm not to miss this
west coast seafood party. Lars-Inge originally from Uddevalla, north of Gothenburg, dug in with nostalgia.
Chrille, Mr Al Holt and Stumpy were all smiles all night.
More like professional seafood Gourmands were Team Outlaw's Tattoo-Micke and Trolhätte-Stefan.
Anders Merenius seems used to it, but how can Monica do that? Most people never see him at all,
but Gordon did - Mr Sun! - sneaking about on the second floor taking pictures...
Gordon was busy eating when not taking pictures. Race photographer Patrik Jakobsson from Trollhättan
was not busy here at all, just waiting for the Wikström BBQ to start up.
Let me see...hm..."opens with the front of monster towards you"
Canon Photostitch made one big photo of two! Click to get a humongously big one to see if you
know anyone here? We also had the B-B-Q up and running on the outside for us that prefer hot
dogs instead of tearing apart small monsters that has crawled the bottom of the sea and lake.
Slurping, slurping! A lot of hard work for the goodies. That's why we decided to have an All-You-Can-Eat.
The buffet was praised by everybody which of course made Agneta happy!
But Patrik Jakobsson and I went out and took another grilled hot dog with mustard, ketchup and
Bostic-cucumber. It was nice to have some race cars on the outside to kick tires on. Viggo (in
white hat) listened very carefully about what Michael Karlsson had to say about his VW.
Patrick was the snaps master of the evening! SKÅÅL!
Per Moe and Karl Ellwein talked about Impala SS and Maryland where Per lived when he bought his SS
and got to know Karl. Kenneth Feldthusen and Karl were talking about Kenneth's latest invention, an
extremely effective water remover built for sports arenas and such.
Frank was a hero all evening for driving his Jerry Haas Trans Am from his garage to our garage - on the
street. This is a team with lot of good laughs.
Stumpy loved Agneta's lake crayfish so much he almost fainted. Celeste is a lady and ladies don't eat in
the same way. Top Fuel Thore with Anne and Ann-Kristin. He's making signs but we never know what
he means, we just nod. He had promised to fix the coffee during the evening but was never close...
The Northrace Potatoe Gun was an instant hit! Just a little hairspray, cap on, pull the lighter...KABOOM!
Helen Sjöström (one of the normal humans) was amazed of the result!
Praiseworthy The Olsson Family Lincoln Mark V Pro Street Bar opened! Mom and daughter - Annelie
and Therese' became busy for the rest of the evening.
Tommy Aga Olsson, Janusz Szendel, Anders Merenius, Patrick Wikström and 526 HEMI
talking alcohol in the bar.
We showed Mr Al Holt's wild and loud American drag racing DVD's non stop which gave the party the
right attitude. Even so much that Åza Rydberg (normal) wanted to try out the seat in Frank's Comp.
And some Hot ChickSS wanted to try out the evil looking Blackout.
"Oh! You've got black nails! Please do something sexy with this SS-emblem..."
Time to play! On The Reaction Time Race on Patrick Wikström's complete christmas tree test'n'training
kit! Everybody was first invited to warm up with 3 qualifying runs and Patrick's son Simon was the Race
Chief and kept everything in control for this 32-human ladder. I'm sorry to reveal that Simon misplaced
the complete qualifying lists and elimination ladder after the party, maybe because he got beaten
himself by his mother Ann-Katrin which really was the biggest upset in this race since Simon and
daddy have had an unreal training experience on this system for 132 years!
Two Impala SS giants from two different worlds meet in TBDGIT! Stumpy vs. Per Moe. I have no idea
who won this battle!
Jonas lost by watching the longsome glowing tree versus former drag racer Linda who did the right thing.
Celeste was up against hard core racer Michael Karlsson and the winner was...I have no idea since
the papers disappeared! But boyfriend Stumpy grabbed her arm which must have meant something!?
The crowd interest grew per round. This is one of the Semi Finals and well trained Patrick Wikström
finally put away Linda who forgot to focus on the small tree. Patrick in the Finals!
They say this strange figure was the winner of the Reaction
Time Race! But the papers, the proofs, are gone...
TBDBIT - The Best Damn Band In Town - was professionals hand picked by friend Per-Erik "Perra"
Winberg (bass). Since it was a Crayfish party we needed Evert Taube and such traditional Swedish
music. Then TBDBIT gave us various good music from ABBA, Elvis, AC/DC, ZZ Top and many others.
Axel couldn't stop himself, took the microphone and ordered "BLUES!" and got it! His improvised
English made the largest laughs and applauses all night.
Multi-tasker Glen "Stumpy" Koenig from Pennsylvania, here with Agneta, had his first ever waltz to
Swedish troubadour icon Evert Taube, Ann-Sofie Herlogsson and Klas Insulán also enjoyed the music.
Grand Jury decided that Lars-Inge won 1st prize of the dancing with his quick Lindy Hop!
Suddenly Karl Santana went up and borrowed the guitar and ordered the AC/DEC classic "Back In
Black". Everybody cheered but Karl wasn't too satisfied himself "Nah, it's been too long time ago,
but I've played together with GoGo-girls in foreign countries." Man of surprises...
Etcetera...
Now, was that a party or what?
BONUS
And here is the proof, Karl playing with the band "Savage" in Olongapo, Phillipines in 1986! And yes,
we can see the GoGo-girls.
And here is another one. Looking like an illustration for Songbook of America. Karl was voted "Most
Musical" of Senior High School graduating class of 1979 Oscoda, Michigan. But not so much GoGo!
Thinking about it, shouldn't we have GoGo girls at our next Crayfish Party...?
