POSTCARDS : GEARING UP FOR ROUTE 66 KICKS.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer

``Now you go through St. Looey,

Joplin, Missouri,

and Oklahoma City is mighty pretty.

You see Amarillo,

Gallup, New Mexico,

Flagstaff, Arizona.

Don't forget Winona,

Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino.

Get your kicks on Route 66.''

Hot rodders from throughout California - and along the once-famed Route 66 - will gather this weekend in San Bernardino for the seventh annual Route 66 Rendezvous, a frenzy of car-related nostalgia and rock 'n' roll, family-style.

Events include a kids' fun zone, entertainment, food, mystery poker run (a navigational rally) and a street-legal open-header cruise contest. And it'll all rock to the songs that were the rage in the early 1960s when Tod and Buz piloted their way-cool Corvette from town to town, breaking hearts along the way, in the TV show that helped give the pioneer east-west interstate its mystique.

Cool, man.

Even cooler is the induction into the Cruisin' Hall of Fame of the Corvette itself, the car that sparked Americans' first love affair with the sports car.

``The whole event is a return to nostalgia - what it was like back in the '50s and '60s,'' said Julie Rosoff, a spokeswoman for the weekend shindig. ``It's truly a family event. A lot of car fans have grown up loving classic cars and have integrated their families into that love. Car guys are car guys, but the kids also get into it.''

To emphasize the family focus of the event, special guests will be the actors who played the three Anderson kids on the 1954-63 TV sitcom ``Father Knows Best'': Billy Gray, who played Bud; Lauren Chapin, who portrayed Kathy/Kitten; and Elinor Donahue, who played Betty/Princess.

More than 1,200 street rods and classic cars are expected to cruise through downtown San Bernardino during the nostalgia fest.

Although hard-core auto buffs already have signed up to go cruisin', any pre-1973 American-made vehicle or foreign classic can be entered, along with American sports cars of any model year. Hot rods, motorcycles, trucks, antique fire engines and police vehicles also are invited to participate. Registration costs $40; information: [phone].

Backdrop for the Saturday and Sunday events is an area called the Route 66 Plaza, just outside City Hall, with a wall map of the road that once was known as ``America's Main Street.'' Each year, a plaque is added to the wall to identify new members of the Cruisin' Hall of Fame.

There may be others honored at the weekend celebration, too. Event organizers have been searching for people who helped build the famed highway, known as the ``Mother Road.''

``This is the first and only search of its kind that we know of,'' said San Bernardino Mayor Tom Minor. ``Or goal is to have a special tribute for those people who, in constructing the Route 66 highway, created more than a paved road. They helped to create a way of life.''

But none of those laborers have notified event organizers yet.

``It'd be nice to find some, but I'd be amazed,'' Rosoff said. ``After all, it was 70 years ago when they built the highway. But there's probably someone out there, somewhere.''

Cyrus Stevens Avery, Oklahoma's highway commissioner in the 1920s, lobbied for construction of the transcontinental highway; he finally won federal approval, and construction began in 1926. In its early stages, only 800 miles of the route were paved; the rest were graded dirt or gravel, bricks covered with asphalt or just wooden planks. Paving of the 2,400-mile highway was not completed until 1938.

The finished road spanned eight states and three time zones.

But it remained Route 66 for less than 20 years. The 1956 Federal Highway Act chopped the road up into pieces; it became Interstate 55 from Chicago to St. Louis, Interstate 44 from St. Louis to Oklahoma City, Interstate 40 from Oklahoma City to Barstow, Interstate 15 from Barstow to San Bernardino and Interstate 10 from San Bernardino to Santa Monica. A portion of Route 66 existed in Arizona as late at 1984. The California portion of the old road was named a historic highway in the early 1990s.

``But it'll be Route 66 again, just for the weekend - starting this afternoon, when we can shut the streets down for cruisin,' '' Rosoff said.

Hit the road via Web site

Can't make it to San Bernardino this weekend to wallow in Route 66 nostalgia? Check it out via computer on the World Wide Web at: http://www.wp.com/Route66/home.html. Event organizers promise real-time coverage of events throughout the weekend.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, Box

Photo: (1) Downtown San Bernardino comes alive with car-related nostalgia and rock 'n' roll family-style during the annual Route 66 Rendezvous.

(2) No caption (Road sign: Historic ROUTE 66)

Box: Hit theroad via Web site (See text)