Hot Rod Heart

“Ooh, let's go ridin'
Cruisin' down the open road
We can put the top down
Listen to the radio
Big ol' Buick
And a big ol' sky
Wheels on fire
And I'll tell you why
I got a hot rod heart.”

From Hot Rod Heart by John Fogerty

On June 15^th, a black Monday morning with rain coming down so hard that it sloshed into my shoes, I followed a large and diverse crowd into the Shrine of St. Joseph, just north of the Convention Center.

There were men in suits, women in pearls and other folks in dressy casual. Then there were the guys in the “Geezer Gassers” T-shirts.

I was attending the memorial service for Wayne Arteaga. Wayne was the “quiet” Arteaga – and that was saying a lot. Robert Wayne Arteaga was the son of Robert “Bob” Arteaga, brother of Eldon Arteaga, and uncle of Bradley Arteaga of Arteaga Studios.

The Arteagas have been intertwined in the history of St. Louis and the building industry here for almost three-quarters of a century. Bob began by working for others, photographing legendary celebrities such as Charles Lindbergh and Babe Ruth. Then the Arteagas received a commission to photograph the Arch’s construction. The assignment was to shoot once a month, but instead the Arteagas shot thousands of photos, creating an unprecedented record of the construction of a national monument.

The Arteagas have been passionate advocates for St. Louis, and particularly for Downtown. On the wall of Arteaga Studios at the corner of Brannon and Delor is a sign from their old studio, which was located from 1946 to 1953 on what is now part of the Arch Grounds. The “A” in Arteaga is an Arch, which is really strange when you consider that the design for the Arch had not even been conceived at that time.

The Arch photography was a defining moment for the Arteagas. Eldon, Wayne, and Bradley have become familiar figures at industry events, and for their documentation of the construction in St. Louis. The breathtaking restoration of the Shrine of St. Joseph was an Arteaga family mission. Sitting in the church on June 15 I couldn’t believe it was the same pigeon-infested disaster they’d shown me before work began.

Bob Arteaga was a walking dichotomy, profane in one breath and deeply spiritual in the next, but always passionate. Eldon is everybody’s best friend, always good for a bad joke. I’ve never had a conversation with him that lasted less than half an hour. Eldon’s son Bradley is the consummate businessman/entrepreneur ­– outgoing, smart, and direct.

Then there was Wayne. Wayne could be funny with a dry wit that could be hysterical at times. But mostly he was quiet in counterbalance to the almost manic enthusiasm of Bob and Eldon. He was devoted to his wife Bernie and daughter Chris. Wayne could almost seem boring… until you saw his cars. When I met Wayne he was driving a lime green Willys that he’d converted into a pickup truck.

Wayne became legendary in drag racing circles for his maroon 1939 Willys with a blown 360-inch Chrysler Hemi engine. Wayne and his friend John Hellmuth blew up engines and had fun through the 1960s. Eventually Wayne’s daughter Chris caught the bug. Wayne converted the green truck into a racer and painted it blue for her.

Wayne is legendary in hot rod/drag racing circles, as a Google search of his name quickly reveals. Brad Arteaga told me that a couple of weeks before his uncle died there was a get-together of the old gasser racers that Wayne attended. “Some young guys were in awe. They were asking him to sign their dashboards,” Brad said.

In his own way, Wayne Arteaga was just as passionate as his more vociferous dad, brother, and nephew. But it isn’t his passion for pre-WWII Willys that I’ll remember him for. When I think of Wayne I recall his devotion to his family and friends, his steadiness in a crisis and the grace that he gave me in some of my less graceful moments.

As John Fogerty would say, Wayne Arteaga had a hot rod heart.