Round Round Get Around

Confession: I’m a bit embarrassed by our newest car. Not because it pollutes the air with rude noises or billowing black smoke. No, our car, a Passat, makes me blush because it’s just a little too nice. Not that it’s particularly luxurious. At the age of 12, it has a cracked windshield and is decorated with a collection of dings acquired by its previous owners.

Still, the Passat is kind of fancy (plush seats, a Frenchy sounding name and an air conditioner that actually works) in a way that’s a little foreign to me. Not to mention that in the year since we bought it, the car has yet to break down at some inopportune time (e.g., on the way to work or to an appointment), which seems like a rare luxury indeed – like eating a gourmet brownie when a bowl of potato soup would suffice.

Consider some of the vehicles my husband I have owned in the past, like the ’63 midnight blue Chevy Impala that went kaput about a month after we bought it from a bearded folk singer. Although our time together was brief, the long, sleek Impala with the chrome trim was my first car, and I still get a little tingly when I think of steering it down a curving, tree-lined road.

We bought our next car, a ’68 Buick Skylark, after our son was born. I suppose it was a beauty when it was new, with pristine upholstery and pale olive paint that shimmered in the sunlight. But when we acquired it, the Skylark was already over 20 years old, and its paint had dulled to a flat khaki. Inside, its seats were damp and cracked and half of the automatic windows no longer went up and down (well, they did go down).



Working as a freelance writer, I’d tuck my son into his car seat and together we’d drive all over town, picking up new work and dropping off completed projects between trips to grocery stores, playgroups and parks. As my son got a little older, we played tapes in the Skylark too, and we’d sing together. We sang “Let’s Take It Nice and Easy” with Frank Sinatra and we sang “A Fine Romance” with Fred Astaire and we sang “It’s Love, It’s Love” with Lena Horne. Besides getting us where we wanted to go, the giant, rust-flecked car made me want to laugh over the incongruity of a small-boned mother with a penchant for poetry driving such a big lunky thing. Of course the Skylark had a poetry of its own as its V-8 engine carried my son and I up and over hills as easily as a sled gliding through the snow.



When our daughter was born, we brought her home from the hospital in the Skylark, with me sitting beside her in the back seat and murmuring words of comfort to help ease the shock of being taken via C-Section from my womb only to be tucked inside a musty old Buick. By the time our girl was four, though, the Skylark was acting up. When it started dying in the middle of intersections, we felt compelled to replace it with a shiny Ford Escort, which was reliable enough, although we soon learned this new vehicle was a poor little tin can of a car that strained to make its way up roads with a slight incline.



Perhaps the Escort was an ill-conceived purchase, but it was light and easy to drive, and now, 15 years later, it has acquired a weathered look that’s as comfortable as an old chambray shirt, and I still enjoy driving it now and then just to prove that my tastes haven’t become too posh.

  

Now, just a block away from our house, a light rail line is being constructed. In the process, our once-gritty, industrial neighborhood has been graced with smooth white sidewalks, tasteful landscaping and a series of canoe sculptures that seem to be floating up a stream of tall waving grasses. When the new train is up and running, I just may be ready to turn in my keys for both the smooth-running Passat and my old friend the Escort. After all, I’d love to let someone else do the driving while I sit and people-watch or read or write.



Then again, I’ve always had a little yen to own a Ford Falcon. Maybe a ’63 convertible, red, two doors. If you know of one that’s for sale, let me know.