Granville Then & Now – October 1, 2020

'Car Cruise' brings out classic cars

By Erik Pekar, Town Historian

The first Granville Area Autumn Leaves Car Cruise was held this last Saturday, September 26. This event was created as a substitute for the Autumn Leaves Car Show, a staple of Granville's fall calendar of events since 1987. The car show was cancelled earlier this year due to the restrictions stemming from the pandemic. In what is perhaps the first Granville happening in a long time to be termed the "greatest reversal since Serutan", the Autumn Leaves Car Cruise was organized within the last couple of weeks by Mayor Paul Labas, Jenine Macura, and Rick Roberts.

The cars assembled at Telescope, and started driving off at 11 on a course taking them through Wells, Lake St. Catherine, on to Cones Point, and then back to Granville, passing through the village streets. While in some past years, the leaves had yet to change in late September, this year was different. The leaves in this area had already been changing colors with the recent cold weather, but around Wednesday of last week a "heat wave" came through the area that stalled any further change of leaves' colors. The result was an "Autumn Leaves" event taking place with the autumn leaves of the area's trees displaying perfect fall foliage.

+++

The new track around the football field at the Granville High School opened for use on September 21. Just about all the work is done, except for some grass seeding and reinstallation of fencing along Quaker Street that had been removed to allow easier access to part of the construction site.

The new track has a blue surface, and the lanes are painted gold. These colors represent Granville's school colors of blue and gold. The previous track had a black surface, with lanes painted in white.

In early September the track paving was finished, and then the track was shielded from view by covering the track's fence with opaque white tarps. The mystery of the tarps was revealed in a few days' time. The track surface was being coated in blue, and without the tarps blue paint would have gone on the fence.

At the present time, there are restrictions on the use of the track. It is open on weekdays from 6:30 am to 9 am, and from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm, and is closed on weekends. On weekdays between 9:00 am and 4:00 pm the track is reserved exclusively for school purposes. These restrictions are due to the pandemic, and that the school has not fully reopened. The two other restrictions, on the use of athletic shoes and no allowance of pets on the track, were the case on the previous track as well.