I’m embarrassed to admit this, but here I go anyway…I tend to humanize automobiles.
As late as 1960, we were still a one car family. A second car was simply too expensive, and quite frankly in those days, especially in our social-economic position, a second car was considered a luxury only for the rich.
Our one car happened to be a newly purchased, albeit used, 1957 Ford station wagon. Dad quietly mentioned that morning that he had traded our old Mercury and would be bringing another car home that afternoon. We’d logged nearly a hundred thousand miles on the old 52 Mercury and it was tired to the bone. It had been a good old car, but in those days it was very difficult to push any Detroit built car over 100,000 miles. In fact it would be several decades before manufacturers installed an odometer that registered more than one hundred thousand miles.
Determining a used car’s actual mileage was a matter of masculine prowess in my father’s day. Did the car he was considering have 22,000 miles or 122,000 miles?
But that was OK with men like my dad. After all, men were a vast majority of the car buyers in those days and sniffing these clues out was part of the adventure when purchasing a used car in America. It would also be several decades before Uncle Sam decided we needed his protection from fraudulent dealers. Mileage wasn’t registered on the car’s title in those days either, adding to the mystery.
But I digress…allow me to return to the story.
I remember the first glimpse I caught of our new/used car as it turned into the driveway.
The road was mostly gravel which predestined our cars to dust encrustation. So any time a clean car arrived it was akin to an angelic visitation for this 10 year old, car-crazy kid. And other than Mom’s cousin from Akron, a tall starched-shirted man and his well-dressed wife who drove a long expensive car, a clean car in our driveway was rare. It’s funny but I don’t remember those people very well. That might be because while they visited I remained with their polished land yacht admiring its soaring fins and dazzling pastel pink and charcoal two-toned paint.
But on this day, the clean car coming in our drive was special—special because it was ‘Our Car!’ I could swear its gleaming chrome bumper and grille smiled at me as though it knew who I was. Its hooded headlamps winked at me in the late afternoon sun. Its embossed gold trim insert sparkled between the chrome strips that ran the length of the car and vanished into its understated tail fins. I had planted myself on the bank, just off the driveway, anticipating the best vantage point to be first to see the new car when it arrived. And my wait was rewarded as I sat there, my arm wrapped knees tucked tightly to my chest, I was breathless with pride. And there rolling to a stop in front of my very eyes flashed a beautiful chrome hubcap encircled by a wide, white wall tire!
You see, white wall tires were the mark of a deluxe automobile. We’d never had a white walled car in the history of Grubb transportation! I dropped my face into my hands and wept. Dad stepped from the station wagon, put his hand on my shoulder and asked, “What’s wrong…don’t you like the car?” However my muttered response was muffled into oblivion by the cheers of the rest of the family who circled the new car and clamored for a ride.
We went for ice cream at the Diary Whizz in Bremen. I got a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate…my favorite. A red letter day!
As a ten year old, I got weepy over white wall tires. That’s hilarious to me today! But just as I humanize cars, Jesus coming as a child in a manger humanized the Living God for us. Matthew 1:23 says:
“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they
will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’)”.
Merry Christmas!
Read Ron’s column, Simple Faith, each Saturday on the Faith Page (page 3) of the Lancaster Eagle Gazette, or visit www.lancastereaglegazette.com.