News and Activities from the Tidewater Region—Antique Automobile Club of America Volume 62, Issue 4 April 2018 TRAACA CALENDAR Check traaca.com/calendar.htm for the latest info on upcoming events! APRIL 2018 13 TRAACA Board Meeting 6:30 PM (Friday) Holiday Inn—Norfolk Airport 14 Lantern Asia Display Norfolk Botanical Garden Norfolk, VA 19 TRAACA Dinner Meeting Holiday Inn—Norfolk Airport 28 ODMA Old Dominion Meet Harrisonburg, VA MAY 2018 4 TRAACA Board Meeting Dinner & Lantern Asia Display 6:30 PM (Friday) Holiday Inn—Norfolk Airport Saturday, April 14, 2018 5 TRAACA Square Car Tour (Route to be determined) Join us Saturday evening, April 14th, for this year. An article in The Virginian Pilot a stroll through the Norfolk Botanical stated that “Many of the 35 new pieces 19 TRAACA Barbecue Garden’s Lantern Asia display. We will were inspired by coastal Virginia, Dewey & Maxine Milligan’s start the night off at 5:00 PM at the Azalea including sea creatures and plants. Also (instead of May Dinner Meeting) Chesapeake, VA Inn restaurant, home to great Italian and new this year will be performances by Greek food. The restaurant is located two Chinese dancers. While much of the JUNE 2018 miles from the Botanical Garden. exhibit is new, some crowd favorites from 15 TRAACA Board Meeting After dinner we will head over to the 2016 have returned. Those include a 6:30 PM (Friday) Norfolk Botanical Garden. Unlike our massive dragon, panda bears and a white Holiday Inn—Norfolk Airport drive-thru of the Garden’s Holiday Lights pagoda” made of more than one million 16 TRAACA Antique Crawl display in December, Lantern Asia is a porcelain plates, cups, and bowls. “100-mile Yard Sale”—NC walking tour. According to the Visit The club is subsidizing the tickets for the Norfolk website, we will “Take a magical, Lantern Asia Exhibit, so the cost for tickets 21 TRAACA Dinner Meeting mile-long walk and witness radiating works is only $10 per person. Don’t forget to Holiday Inn—Norfolk Airport of art . highlighting traditional Asian wear comfortable shoes—there will be no JULY 2018 themes that include nature, wildlife, trams running on Saturday. Please plan to 6 TRAACA Board Meeting architecture and ancient folklore. These join your fellow TRAACA members for 6:30 PM (Friday) structures—some as tall as four stories— great food and a fun night out! Holiday Inn—Norfolk Airport replicate those found in China, Japan, WHEN: 5:00 PM, Saturday, April 14th India, Thailand, Korea, Burma and WHERE: Azalea Inn restaurant 19 TRAACA Dinner Meeting Holiday Inn—Norfolk Airport Singapore. During the day, guests will 2344 E. Little Creek Rd. have the opportunity to see the detail and Norfolk, VA 23518 27- TRAACA Weekend Tour to craftsmanship of these mystical works of FOLLOWED BY: Lantern Asia display 29 Charlottesville, VA art. By night, experience the art WHERE: Norfolk Botanical Garden AUGUST 2018 illuminated in enormous proportions. The 6700 Azalea Garden Rd. 10 TRAACA Board Meeting highly detailed workmanship of these Norfolk, VA 23518 Chinese artisans is truly awe-inspiring.” SIGN UP: By Sunday, April 8, by 11 TRAACA Tour of Virginia For those of you who saw the display contacting Travis Berry at (757) 536-1214 War Museum two years ago, there are new exhibits to see or [email protected]. Newport News, VA April 2018 THE MUDFLAP confuse AACA members and others. If you have questions From the Driver’s Seat about this issue, please read the AACA’s response letter if Mark McAlpine you haven’t already done so. You can also talk to me, Jim TRAACA President Elliott, or Bob Parrish—as AACA Board Members we’re all [email protected] up to speed on what’s happened to date and what’s going on (757) 967-0074 now. (You can also talk to Tom Cox, but because he lives in Roanoke and only attends a few TRAACA activities a year, Let me start this month’s message by addressing a serious he’s a little harder to reach.) issue. (I know—a rare occasion for me.) Many of you—if On a more pleasant note, AACA Headquarters hopes to not all of you—probably received a letter (dated March 16th) release drawings by the end of April of what the new AACA from the AACA Museum making some serious allegations Headquarters and Library & Research Center building will about the national club. I hope you also received and read look like when we move into it. In case you missed the closely the AACA’s response, which was e-mailed to all news, the building the Club purchased is adjacent to the show AACA members and posted on the AACA Forum (under field where the AACA Eastern Division Fall Meet is held in “General Discussion”). If you have read the AACA’s Hershey, PA, and at 34,500 square feet it is considerably response, you saw that the Museum’s letter was filled with larger than the Club’s current building (which was built in self-serving half-truths and misrepresentations. the 1930s, doesn’t have an elevator—which makes it tough I think the TRAACA has been very fortunate in getting the for some members with mobility challenges, let alone to true story about the ongoing conflict between the Club and move the large collections of literature the Library receives the Museum as it has continued to develop because former and stores), and has problems occasionally with flooding in AACA Presidents Tom Cox & Bob Parrish and AACA the basement. This new (for the Club) building will allow Board Member Jim Elliott are fellow members of our region the Library to expand its holdings and continue to live up to and have kept us up to date and answered any questions we its reputation as “America’s Automotive Library” for many had. Unfortunately, not every AACA region has that direct decades to come. The Club will take possession of the connect to the National Board, so many AACA members are building after the current owner—the Pennsylvania- confused by the issue (and apparently have not read previous American Water Company—moves out in the first quarter of messages from the Club in the Antique Automobile magazine 2019 (we hope), reconfigure the interior for the AACA or seen the messages posted on the AACA Forum website). Headquarters and AACA Library, and with a little bit of luck The bottom line is the AACA has tried everything it can to move into the building in time for the 2019 Hershey Meet. resolve the issue satisfactorily for both organizations. While The TRAACA Activities Committee has planned some fun the Club would prefer the Museum stop using our name and things for us to do over the next couple months. On acronym (which we’ve used since 1935), at this point the Saturday, 14 April, we’re going to the Azalea Inn restaurant Club asks only one basic—and pretty simple—thing: for the in Norfolk for dinner, then going to see the Lantern Asia Museum to add a disclaimer that it is not affiliated with the display at the Norfolk Botanical Garden. If you didn’t see it Antique Automobile Club of America. (In return, the AACA when it was here in 2016, it’s fantastic—and they’ve added would add a disclaimer that it is not affiliated with the more! On Saturday, 19 May, we’re holding the TRAACA’s Museum.) If the Museum would agree to this, the friction Final Annual BBQ, being graciously hosted by Dewey & would be over and both organizations could move forward Maxine Milligan at their home in Chesapeake. Did I mention without wasting further effort and resources. The AACA that it’s free for TRAACA members? Look for more info in does not wish the Museum any harm. It’s a great museum the May Mudflap. and we hope it does well. We just don’t want it to mislead or Mark Mc 2018 TRAACA Officers & Board Dinner Meeting Corner President - Mark McAlpine: Chief Contact: Skip Patnode [email protected] Vice President - Matt Doscher: Members will be contacted via e-mail to obtain their [email protected] RSVPs for the club’s monthly dinner meeting. (Members without e-mail will be contacted by phone.) If Secretary - Vickie Doscher you will be attending, please respond to Skip Patnode’s Treasurer - Charlie Dawson e-mail by the requested date and let him know how many Board - Jerry Adams people will be coming. (There is no need to respond if Board - Travis Berry you are not coming.) Skip will reply to you once he adds Board - Scott Davies you to his attendance list. It is critical that you respond Board - Tim Hund to these e-mails so we can let the hotel know how many President Emeritus - Jim Villers people will be attending & they can prepare enough food. If you are not receiving Skip’s e-mails or want to be taken Visit the TRAACA on the Internet at: off the list, please contact him at [email protected] www.traaca.com or (757) 672-8495. Thank you for your cooperation! THE MUDFLAP is the newsletter for the Tidewater Region of the Permission is granted to other AACA groups to reprint Antique Automobile Club of America, and is published monthly. Editors: Mark & Marion McAlpine articles from this newsletter (except copyrighted material) 3117 Summerhouse Dr, Suffolk, VA 23435 if credit is given to the author & newsletter. Permission is (757) 967-0074 / E-mail: [email protected] NOT granted for Internet publishing without preapproval.