When I shared about the cars of
my youth, I initially shared only those cars which caused embarrassment. There were other cars both cool and
quirky. Anyone who has driven a used car
(clunker or otherwise) knows that each mile you drive is a borrowed mile and
eventually your car just stops working, unable to be resuscitated even by the
most talented of shade tree mechanics.
Based on the slight uptick in
the quality of the cars once we moved to Paris (in Texas, which I shouldn’t
have to keep reminding you, but I guess you’re just not paying enough
attention) the management of a motel seemed to be a reasonably consistent money-maker. Whether acute embarrassment, engine failure
or the incongruity of owning an Estate Wagon without said Estate around which
to drive it, was the cause of us relinquishing ownership of the previously
mentioned behemoth of a ’76 Caprice Classic, we quickly shifted gears and found
ourselves the operators of a 1983 Mazda GLC Hatchback!
It was red and very, very cool and
had custom speakers that were encased inside little black wooden boxes that sat
in the back window and would be flung into the back of the head of anyone
sitting in the back seat if the hatch were opened or the brakes were slammed,
or the car swerved suddenly. You
wouldn’t think these events would happen very often, but you would be wrong,
especially the swerving. My sister is
not one to brake when necessary, she simply changes her route around the
slowing object without reducing her speed, whether the new terrain is paved or
not.
One of the things that my parents never knew was how dangerously this
particular car was operated on the 60-mile round trip from Paris proper to the
boons of Bogata to the 1A Rivercrest High School. My sister, unlike me, was not a conscientious
student and was prone to leave things like homework, book reports, and the like
until the last minute, leaving her scrambling most every day. Honor student that I have always been
(sarcastic comments that I often made from the back row of my classes
notwithstanding) I was never unprepared for each school day. Other than monumentally impressive
Farrah-hair that could withstand hurricane force winds, my sister was typically
unprepared for most school days, especially book reports.
A fan of romance novels and Gone
with the Wind, my sister was a voracious reader but only of the topics she
chose. Unfortunately for her, LaVyrle
Spencer and Debbie Macomber were never part of the English curriculum of public
schools in Texas. This left my sister to
either threaten or cajole me to read the book and write the report for her or
read the book under duress and procrastinate on the writing of the book report
in the hopes that some tragedy would befall our community and the school would
be forced to close on that particular day.
Mind you, she didn’t actually pray for anyone to be hurt in order for
her to avoid writing the report, but she was willing to deal with the psychological
situation should someone’s sacrifice be required.
On those days, when the morning news did not carry any word on the
destruction of the school, she would maneuver the car from within the parking
lot of our home (at the motel) all the way to the outskirts of town, paying as
much attention as one can when rocking out to Tears for Fears or (King) George
Strait, with earrings large enough to serve up some chips and salsa, y’all.
Once we hit the city limits and the traffic on Highway 271 reduced
considerably, she would turn over the steering to me, while she wrote the book
report in her notebook propped on the steering wheel. Note that I didn’t mention that we had
changed seats…because we had not. I’ll
let that sink in for a minute.
Oh yes, dear readers, I steered from the passenger side of a little red hatchback
while my sister wrote a book report in a notebook propped on the steering wheel
of her car, speeding up and slowing down at my directions, including passing
“pawpaws and mawmaws” and the occasional tractor, who committed the sin of
enjoying their leisurely morning drive.
Where they were going is beyond me.
Didn’t they have chickens to feed or cows to milk?
And that wasn’t the only thing that happened in that particular car that
was nerve-wracking. One time, on the way
home from an away game during football season (we were both in band; I, a
way-cool trumpet player, she the Captain of the flag corps), somewhere in the
neighborhood of 11:00 pm, we ran out of gas before we made it home. In those days, in that geographic area, there
was no 24-hour anything, so finding late night petrol was an exercise in
futility. When we assessed our
situation, stranded on an empty highway right in front of a cemetery, actually
Meadowbrook Memorial Park as I believe it was called, with no cell phone and no
inclination to walk the distance remaining to our home, we decided to sleep in
the car until our parents and the search party they would have formed could
find us.
Mind you I got no sleep as I was awaiting death via stylized zombie
dancing as Michael Jackson’s Thriller
had invaded our world and embedded fear in anyone’s brain who had MTV. We lived in a real town and, therefore, had
cable. We didn’t have to pay the rich
guy in town to “steal” his satellite service like some people who shall remain
unnamed.
I had just closed my eyes, pretending to sleep after Shontyl had mocked
my fear of an impending, albeit rhythmic, attack, when someone knocked on the
window of the car. We both screamed as
loud as Drew Barrymore the first time she saw E.T. The screams turned to
joy, when we realized the face belonged to TJ, one of the residents of the
motel who happened to be on her way home from a night of doing whatever you do
when you are out late and smell of alcohol.
What? I was Baptist and 13, my
idea of nefarious nocturnal activities involved the secretive eating of
pilfered food or trying to watch MTV after bedtime. I made Mother Teresa seem like a wanton
hussy, y’all. Seriously.
On another occasion, we were tailgating an 18-wheeler (because that’s
what yu do when your main goal in piloting a vehicle is to be “in the front”)
and when he stopped suddenly, we almost hit him and Shontyl had to veer off the
highway and into the grassy ditch. Never
one to allow a change of terrain to keep her from her goal of being “in the
front”, she didn’t apply the brakes, even when we saw what appeared to be a
six-foot long metal cylinder of acetylene.
As the offspring of a welder, we could identify these things quickly. When it became clear we would hit it, my
immediate thought was “I can’t die! I’ve
never met Madonna!”
Before you start rolling your eyes, remember this was 1986 and Madonna
was white hot, people. White hot! And don’t act like you didn’t like her. I didn’t single-handedly make her famous. There were plenty of other people
Material-girling across America. I felt
as strongly about Madonna as I did about my chances of being selected to appear
on The Real World, Season 2, back in
the early 90s. Apparently my DUSTY: THE BOXED SET wasn’t as clever (or desperate)
as I thought. Thank the Lord for small
favors, y’all. If I had ever been on TV
I would be unemployable. Just sayin’.
Luckily the “acetylene tank” was actually one of those really long
punching bags from a gym and we hit it, rolled right over it, got back on the
road in front of the 18-wheeler and headed right on our way home. Of course, we had to stop at Braum’s for a
treat. Nothing takes the edge off almost
dying like chicken-fried steak sandwich with a two-scoop sundae on the
side. You wouldn’t think almost dying in
a car was a frequent event, but you would be wrong. I’m not saying going to Braum’s after every vehicular
near-miss was the main reason I was chubby during my time at Rivercrest but it’s
as good an excuse as anything else. Am I
right?
