From the Desk of Tray Smith - September

Well here we are in September, kids are back to school, and there is hope in the air for our favorite football teams. NASCAR is getting into the chase, and here I am again wondering what I write about this month. I could write about the RPM Act, but I think I have beaten that drum enough in our newsletter. I could talk about what a great August we had or what we expect in the September. Or I could try to pull some heart strings on something that is laying heavy on me but I will keep that until October when it happens.

What I will write about is a picture that a good friend of mine, Chris Ryan from Ryan’s Rod and Kustom, put out on Facebook. It was about teaching your kids or a young person that it is ok to learn how to work on something and get your hands dirty. It brought back a ton a memories for me about my dad and I working on some project or another. Growing up, my father was a line mechanic and him teaching me on Saturday or some night of week how to do this or how to do that. This is where the car bug bit me a longtime ago, even in the teenage years when fathers and sons do more fighting than talking about something. We could go to the shop, work on whatever project my dad was building at the time, and it all seemed to just melt away. Whatever we were fighting about just disappeared. Seems like we could use a little more of father-son or mother-daughter or whatever you call it time. I think this would fix a lot of what we see wrong in our country today.

So take a little time. I know we are all hell bent for leather busy these days, but take a moment, take a day, or an hour and 15 minutes - whatever you have - and spend it with your kids or a young person from your neighborhood and show them that this car hobby is a pretty cool way to make a living or just have a good time on Saturday or whatever night of the week. Well, that’s it for this month from the desk of Tray Smith.