On Thursday in Kent a group of people gathered together to make sense of the senseless.
They did it with chrome fenders, fuzzy dice and rumbling engines.
They were the friends and family of Panther Lake residents Joe and Karen Housley. The couple, long married and diehard fans of vintage cars, died in the most senseless of ways, and at the hands of one of their sons.
That is an overwhelming loss for anyone to bear, but for the people who gathered at the car rally Thursday morning at Performance Auto Center in Kent, the good memories of Joe and Karen took center stage.
And there were so many: how Joe was so dependable, whether you needed help with an engine, or just someone to talk to. Of how Karen loved poodle skirts and how she was always around for a friendly chat. Of how the couple were a beacon of goodwill at the many rallies their auto-loving friends organized.
In short, Joe and Karen were good, decent people. They lived their lives sharing what they loved, with each other, and with their friends.
When our newspaper has to cover stories of bad things happening to good people, sometimes it takes extra effort to balance out the bad with the good; to find the meaning in lives that otherwise would be defined only by their last painful minutes.
In the case of Joe and Karen, though, it wasn’t hard at all to find that iconic moment, when the essence of who they were was put on display for the rest of us to see, and to comprehend.
They had the truest of friends – a close-knit community of car people for whom the cars were only the window dressing for something bigger.
What these local car clubs really are about is fellowship. They’re joined together by their love of things rumbling and four-wheeled, but it’s their support of each other and willingness to help through the hard times that really defines what they are about.
Thanks to these folks, from all walks of life and circumstances, Joe and Karen aren’t going to be remembered just for the tragedy that befell them, but for the good things they brought to the table. They were car people. And car people take care of each other.
On the surface, Kent and south King County may seem like a giant, sprawling urban area, home to countless box stores, warehouses, fields.
But what they really are – and what last week’s procession so aptly illustrated – is a patchwork of smaller communities. Communities where people look out for each other, even in the face of terrible grief.
It makes me want to buy the biggest old Pontiac I can find, and join a club.
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