Long Beach, California.

Last November, we traveled to Long Beach, California to board the Norwegian Bliss for our Panama Canal sailing. Being extra cautious, we arrived two days early in Long Beach to avoid missing the cruise due to flight cancellations or other issues. That gave us some extra time to make a special visit.

I grew up in Long Beach. My father passed away there while I was a senior in high school. It had been many years since I left the city, and I hadn’t been back to visit the cemetery where my parents were buried. The extra day meant that I could visit Mom and Dad. We piled in a taxi and got a ride to the cemetery.

On our way back from the gravesite, I spotted a 1948 Chevrolet, its lines gleaming under the California sun. A jolt of recognition shot through me. It was the same year and model of the car Dad had driven when we first arrived in Long Beach in 1956. Of course, I knew it wasn’t his car. Dad’s Chevrolet had been weathered, its paint faded, its engine bearing the scars of the miles on our journey west. This one was pristine, a collector’s item, a ghost from the past brought back to life. Yet, for a fleeting moment, I allowed myself to believe. To imagine that somehow Dad’s car had found its way here and was waiting patiently for his return.

I walked over to the car and took a couple of cell pics. I glanced at the tail lights for a year date stamped in the plastic to confirm it was a 1948 as the 1947 had the same basic body style. Unfortunately, the taillight lenses were aftermarket products, so there was no year molded into the lenses to help me tell for sure.

I called the taxi driver’s cell phone to ask him to pick us up again and we waited in the shade by the main entrance for the taxi. In the meantime, two gentlemen walked up to the car. It was obvious one of them was the owner. He opened the trunk and put something inside. From their dress and the nearby groups of people, I could see they were there for a funeral that had just concluded.

Being the crass individual that I am, I approached the two men and told them of my Dad’s ownership of a similar 1948 and I wanted to confirm the year. It is indeed a 1948. After telling him my story, the man surprised me by asking if I wanted to drive it (for old-time’s sake.) I looked over at the car, remembered the “three-on-the-tree” manual transmission, and realized that it had been many years since I had driven a car with a stick shift. I wasn’t about to demonstrate my lack of skill to the owner of such a fine vehicle. I thanked him profusely for the offer but declined with a request that I be allowed to share the photos and the story on my blog. If you’ve read this far, you know his response.

About the photos: I call the opening photo “Dad’s Smiling from Heaven”. With the sun backlighting the image, a couple of sun rays filtered across the image. Those who know I use Luminar Neo for processing might surmise that they were created with Neo’s sun ray generator. They were not. The light leaks were an artifact of that specific exposure. When I saw the light leak on the screen of my Samsung S23U, I went to the other side of the car for a second image. The two images were captured in the UltraWide mode so that I could be close to the car and get a full side view. That accounts for the slight distortion from front to rear. If I were to use the normal wide-angle mode, I’d have had to stand further back and would have ended up including parts of the cars parked next to the subject, blocking the view of the car’s profile. For a closer look at the images in 2K HD, you can check out my Flickr site here.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner