Cars? I’ve had a few. I count sixteen since my first in 1970. And it seems that my memories of the very early ones (in addition to their habitual failure to start, run, pass inspection and produce heat) are embedded in associations, anecdotes and projections from my protracted adolescence, ages seventeen to thirty. After a certain point (basically marriage) my cars were bought from “dealers,” with all the soul-sapping haggling sessions that invariably resulted in another notch on the salesman’s gun. Although, I will admit that the later, dealer-bought cars tended to start right away and consistently had heat, no holes, and stickers. Perhaps as I became somewhat of an adult, my capacity for projecting personality onto my vehicles faded in the face of the necessity to be somewhere at a certain time without evidence of muffler-wrestling on my clothes. I don’t know.
I remember my first car quite clearly. Three hundred dollars’ worth of eight-year-old ’63 Pontiac Grand Prix, “the Big Prize.” It was purchased from a very wealthy family friend who probably only used it to drive to his real car. It was option packed. Never again have I had such a fancy ride anywhere near that level of luxury. Leather, three-way power seats, power antennae, Paul Bunyan leg room. White wall tires (Google them.) Black soft top, luster-gray paint, plush carpeting, and a fancy radio from which the static had been removed. I was a senior in college. The car was largely intended for the six hours round trip home to Tarrytown and back to college in Schenectady and the five-minute drive between school and my off-campus apartment. For the first three months everything was jake in Pontiac land. But then began what was to be an ongoing theme through my early years of car ownership. Every so often the “Big Prize” wouldn’t start. It was as a result of this problem that I learned my first Car 101 lesson, to wit: Trying to start a car by continually turning the key without result can easily lead to a second problem. And in any event walking to school was not arduous particularly if one was rarely eager to get there. A garage diagnosed the problem as a cracked distributor cap which led to fouled points on damp days. (I love that kind of talk even if I generally don’t know what it means.) The mechanic was happy to put on a new cap which was no more satisfactory than the old one, and the problem persisted. Then one day a dim bulb flickers and, I think, if it’s wet, dry it, and I added a hair dryer and a fifty foot extension cord to the list of Grand Prix options. As long as there was an outlet within fifty feet, I could dry the points and start the car. For a little while transportation was reliable.
However, I was in love. And love resided in western Ohio. It was December and I couldn’t wait any longer to see my paramour. I have a car; it’s vacation; I can make a couple of sandwiches, and I’m ready to go. Only in retrospect do I see the serious flaws in my (not) thinking and planning. This was due, in large measure, to being eager, in love, blindly inexperienced, and full of myself and not necessarily in that order. I did consult a map but only to learn the various roads I would take to get just an hour shy of Cincinnati. One road led to another, all major highways, very clear – easy peasy, right? What I failed to do was to think of the journey as a whole: total miles, total hours; I was totally unconcerned. I was, as my late father would say, hearkening back to transportation modes of his own youth, all geed up: metaphor drawn from oxen. I started around six in the evening. I don’t remember the rationale – probably just seemed like a good idea. Off I went. And, you should know, it never occurred to me to check the weather. So, three hours on, radio blasting, both sandwiches already gone, I was startled to see snow falling. (Yes, I was startled to see snow falling mid-winter in the land of the Great Lakes Effect – numb as a hake, right?) Flurries, I reassured myself, fluffy, kind of peaceful. And shortly, fluffy and kind of peaceful and kind of sticking to the road. And soon fluffy and making it impossible to see the road. Defroster and windshield wipers on full blast and emergency lights blinking. Five hours in and now peaceful fluff has become a swirling white curtain in front of the car. An alternative Oobleck event! Inside a psychotic snow globe. And, ok, it’s a fucking blizzard. Hunched up over the wheel, I search for anything that marks the road. I don’t like the phrase, “eyes peeled,” if only because of the image it conjures, but right then, you bet, my eyes were fully, completely, 100% peeled. Slowed way down, I could just (mostly) make out the markers on the side of the road and the occasional big green road sign. At times the wind diminished, and, but briefly, I could see what seemed to be the road, and then, in a swirl, it would be gone.
Focused with all this eye-peeling, I hadn’t checked the gas gauge since the snow started, and when I finally chanced to look, it was clearly time to refuel. And by whatever you think may be holy and for the only time on this trip, my luck changed. Fifteen anxious minutes down the road, while I saw no sign, very tall halogen lights appeared out of nowhere. Pointing between them and following more lights, through no fault of my own, I pulled up at a gas pump. While a beleaguered attendant fulfilled his obligations for gas and oil, I stretched my legs and wondered if, perhaps, the snow wasn’t letting up a bit. Restroom, dry tuna fish sandwich at an exorbitant price from a machine, two bottles of revivifying cola in hand, and I was off again. And, indeed, the snow seemed (didn’t it?) to be letting up.
It was three in the morning. It was still snowing but the radio was back on. I was jacked up on warm Pepsi and across the New York line well into Pennsylvania. Feeling good. Ego fortified. I was back in control and feeling kind of adult. And, honestly, you’d think I would have known better, for it was shortly after this bit of chest pounding that I’m biting into my tuna fish sandwich and the car suffered a complete loss of power. It was unnervingly quiet. We were in a kind of glide mode. Moving forward on propulsion generated a moment ago. Time compressed. The glide went on and quietly on. I was scared. I was well versed in damp points, dead batteries and how to rehang a detached muffler using, on the second attempt, a metal clothes hanger instead of clothesline. But total loss of power on the far side of Buffalo in the remnants of a blizzard was way beyond any automotive “what the fuck!” moment in my experience. (My only comparison was falling a few hundred feet as a result of turbulence my first time riding on a big jet only without the benefit of complementary wine. Hardly reassuring.) A few forever seconds passed. I was utterly unnerved until just as suddenly as it had cut out the engine kicked back in, and I was back in business. Turning off the radio and leaving my sandwich on the floor, I automatically reassumed the familiar hunched-back-isometric blizzard pose for the remainder of the trip.
On the return trip, ten days later, there were two more “no power” events, and, inevitably, it became a regular feature of the Grand Prix’s performance. Eventually the problem was determined to be a cracked block. This was irremediable and sealed the Pontiac’s fate. And in the end, the “Great Prize,” my fanciest car, having earned me twenty-five dollars for the tires and battery, finished life in the crusher.