Time Out
I’ve been reminiscing today. Normally I don’t spend any time at all thinking about the past, my childhood, things like that. I’m living in the present, after all. Its overcast again, a bit gloomy, I’d been writing for a while and graciously allowed myself a breather.
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Why is there such a difference between an event we can never forget and an event we will always remember?
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I leaned back and my mind sallied forth into my remembered yesterdays. I used to love driving, when my mother first allowed me to borrow her VW Bug. She was christened Hermionie, by my mother, but I didn’t ever tell my friends her official name. Driving was freedom, then. Still is when I can cruise down highways doing 75 to Door County, or on spring break to Washington D.C., or on any trip away from routine and toward an adventure.
Then I remembered driving my cousin’s rebuilt Ford Model T, about that same time in my life. My uncle in Iowa City had wisely purchased one well past it’s prime, and along with a mechanic or two and his sons, they’d got that big, boxy beast running, even learning how to fix minor mechanical malfunctions and to change the oil all on their own. That wasn’t why my uncle bought it, though. His sons were as likely to get into trouble as not, and the T’s top speed wasn’t much above 40, downhill. It was built with a whole lot of steel, too. Not like cars today.
I remembered one weekend in college, when I borrowed a friend’s MG, my brother borrowed a friend’s Triumph, and off the two of us went for a drive across and over country roads, neither knowing what that strip of blacktop was called or where we were going to spend the night, just driving those old sportsters for the sheer fun of it. God, what a romp through the north woods we had!
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Where once the car was sex symbol, and virility was at stake, what I drove and my enjoyment in the act were one.
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Somewhere between then and now driving has become a chore. I’ve come to think of this place where I live as Faraway, since everything where I live is a hike. Grocery store: 10 minutes. High school: 10 minutes. Book store: 15 and 20 minutes, respectively. Gas station: 7 minutes. Sporting events: anywhere between 10 and 40 minutes (amateur or professional).
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I’ve spent the last month driving in and out of potholes the like of which you can scarcely imagine. Both my car and I are overdue for an alignment.
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We own three cars now, one for the teenagers, and teenagers by themselves are expensive, let alone the cost of maintaining three vehicles. This year so far I’ve had the rotors replaced ($900), a tie-rod fixed ($85), and two oil changes ($27 each). My daughter is also talented at getting her dad to spring for gas. Just this morning I woke to find a note she’d left requesting a full tank before she had to leave for school at 6:45 a.m. Seven minutes each way. (Last weekend she and her mom returned from shopping with a very pretty prom dress at a very reasonable price ($175), and in a fit of gratitude I’d offered a tank of gas ($47). Now, if only some boy works up the nerve to ask, it’ll all work out.)
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That same daughter caused her mother and I some brittle moments this past winter, learning to drive while also learning to navigate through snow and ice. I noted with some surety that as often as not it was the inexperienced teenager who managed to put their car into the ditch beside the road, and often then on a straightaway with no reason to be steering in any direction but straight on. I’m becoming convinced the state allows 16 year olds the rights to drive simply because, in its infinite wisdom, it knows the younger they are the softer their bones.
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I just got a call from the Dentist’s office. I’d missed my 10:30 appointment (20 minutes). I was focused on writing, in the now as it were (after my detour down memory lane), and I’d completely let matters lapse. Time ceased. Of course time is important, and I’ve got to remember, when I lapse into the now (or time past if its on hand) that planting one foot in the here and now might help this body I inhabit get itself there when (Crown: $1200).