postcards from the edge (part 2)

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the 382 miles between los angeles and san francisco can be driven any number of ways, but what it basically boils down to is either getting there quick, or taking the scenic route.

that latter road less traveled by--the narrow, meandering pacific coast highway--is the one i've wanted to take for 20 years, and since i finally had the chance, i decided to go for it.

the plan, such as it was

       mkf doesn't really plan things, as will soon become clear

was to take the 5 up, spend a few days partying, reminiscing and sightseeing, and then make my leisurely way home down the coast, stopping at notable points along the way.

the trip up was a breeze--i waited until saturday so as to avoid the holiday herd and averaged eighty-five the whole way, with hardly a trooper in sight [thanks, california budget crisis].

trip home goes different--i get off to a late start, cross the san rafael bridge from the east bay into marin, and then south across the golden gate into the city [two bridges, eleven dollars in tolls--thanks again, california budget crisis], fuck around there a little too long, and then finally head south.

in a way, it works out--by the time i stop somewhere south of santa cruz for my first photo op of the day [all of these photos embiggen gorgeously, btw], the light is perfect:

water looks so inviting, doesn't it?  shame it's, like, 50 degrees

as i travel further south, the hills begin to rise

hell, even the slums are picturesque

oh, and in case your overloaded senses need a visual break from the ridiculously-beautiful coastline?  no problem--big sur's right across the street:

it's at some point south of monterey--as the afternoon is waning and about the time i stopped and took the following picture--that something i had only been peripherally aware of for the last hour or so crystallizes in my mind; namely, that for some reason i've got the whole pacific coast highway pretty much to myself.

the fact of this makes me uneasy in a way i can't put my finger on.  maybe i shoulda paid more attention to all those road signs back there indicating some sort of closure up ahead.  but what the hell--there's always a detour, right?

whatever--i'd figure it out later. meantime, there's insanely magnificent shit like this to stop and gawk at [and if you're still wondering which pic you should click on, this would be it]:

as the afternoon fades to twilight and the fog rolls in, the setting sun casts a maxfield parrish glow across the landscape

and i come across my final warning:  this really harsh road sign informing me and all the other clueless idiots like me who ignored all the prior warnings that, thanks to some buzzkill mudslide last year, there's only 22 more miles of PCH before the party ends, and i'd better quickly get ready to make other arrangements--no mention of a detour anywhere.

fuck--no wonder there's nobody else on the road.  my heart sinks at the thought of having to turn around and drive my dumb ass all the way back to fuckin' monterey.

to my relief, i see immediately beyond the above harsh road sign another sign informing me of the town of lucia up ahead--first town i'd come across in many miles.  surely someone there could point me to a detour, right?

the town of lucia turns out to be a combination restaurant/general store on the side of the road whose employees have seen more than their share of people like me.  i walk in the door and before i can even get the words out, the girl behind the counter rolls her eyes, whips out a xerox'd map and a highlighter and says, "look--you can either do it the easy way and turn around and go back the way you came; or if you're brave, you can drive four miles south and take the nacimiento over the mountains to the 101."

"the nacimiento" of which she speaks turns out, i'd find out later, to be the nacimiento-fergusson road, a legendarily steep, narrow, twisting, one-lane mountain pass featuring numerous treacherous hairpin switchbacks and noted not only for its sheer drop-offs at every turn but also its complete absence of guardrails of any kind. 

here's a picture i found of the nacimiento on a good day:

"and should you survive the nacimiento," she continues, "it dumps you into this army base you have to cross to get to the 101, and those bastards'll ticket you if they catch you doing 26 in a 25--and since it's federal, you'll pay $100 for every mile over the speed limit.  whole thing'll take you at least two hours if you're lucky.  you game?"

here's the nacimiento on a bad day:

 

as i turn off the PCH in the gathering gloom with the fog rolling in, i pause before beginning my climb to snap this final picture, and reflect on the fact that if i go over the edge up there somewhere, there's no cell phone coverage in this mountain wilderness, and nobody to even know to look for me there.  would i make it?  should i turn back?

i'll spare you the suspense--bitch back in hooterville didn't realize she was throwing down the gauntlet to the greatest risk-taking scofflaw of all time.  federal, my ass--i was over that motherfucker, through the army base and cruising down the 101 in less than an hour.

problem was, by the time the whole thing was over, it had been a long day and i was exhausted.  fuck san simeon and all the rest of that scenic shit i had planned for the next day--i needed a drink.

so i got myself an in-n-out burger and went home.

*     *     *     *     *

a word about the transportation:

it wasn't a car i was buying, it was a soulless, economical appliance--that's what i, the car guy, told myself a year ago.

that was before i knew this "appliance" could (a) smoothly fly me up the interstate in great comfort at autobahn speeds with power to spare, (b) transport four full-size men and their gear all over san francisco with plenty of elbow room and nobody bitching; (c) stick like glue at insane speeds not only down lombard street and through the serpentine curves of the pacific coast highway but up the nacimiento-fergusson road as well; and (d) do it all averaging 43 mpg.

i feel fairly safe in saying there is no other car in the world that could make all those claims.  it took me a year, but i'm finally happy to say

i love you, baby.

friend of bill

"ok, mike--ease it out like i showed you, reeeeeeal easy."

my first driving lesson. i'm 14, nervously hunched behind the wheel of bill's spotless '68 impala coupe which was [unfortunately] equipped with a three-on-the-tree.

instead of easing it out, i pop the clutch, the car flies backwards outta the driveway and across the street, bounces over the curb and mows down a grove of tender saplings in the neighbor's yard before coming to a stop.  i cringe, await the inevitable.

bill's response:  "hmm...maybe i shoulda backed her out for you."

any wonder i loved the guy?

my mother never remarried, but of the two men she dated seriously after my father's death, bill was the first, and by far my favorite.  a special agent for the IRS [i.e., the gun-carrying kind], bill was suave, smart, easygoing and funny as hell. oh, and he got me.

for our second driving lesson, bill took me out in the country in his old chevy pickup, drove up to a big tree, popped the clutch and slammed into it, turned to me and said, "see? you can't hurt this one."

great as he might've been in my young eyes, bill was a tortured soul. he'd recently left his bible-banging frigid wife after twenty years of misery but he couldn't get past leaving his kids, and it ate at him.

so he drank.

at first it was innocuous.  he'd pull into the driveway in that impala and get out holding a can or a glass--if it was something new, i'd ask for a taste and he'd usually indulge me.  the alcohol didn't seem to affect him much; if anything, it enhanced the dry, sardonic aspect of his personality i loved so much.

problem was, bill's problem, as it usually does, got worse.

one sunday shortly after the driving-lesson fiasco, bill, my mother, siblings and i go walking around downtown after a movie and end up at the local pontiac dealership.  bill watches in bemusement as we all go apeshit over the grand prix featured on the showroom floor.

the next day, there's a honk in our driveway and we walk out to find the impala's gone and bill's waving out the window of his new car.

any wonder i loved the guy?


of course i probably wouldn't have been nearly as enthusiastic about said new car had i known then that one late night a couple months later he'd use it to attempt to kill my mother and himself by drunkenly and at insanely high speeds running every red light in town when she picked the wrong moment to try and break it off with him.

how did it finally end?  with me taking the phone away from my mother one day after school and telling bill's by-then irredeemably drunken ass, "don't call here again--it's time for you to go away and leave us alone."

to his credit, he did just that:  took early retirement, crawled off to dallas and drank until he died.

i remember the day--we got the call, my mother broke down and i turned to stone.

*     *     *     *     *

there was my uncle huby before him, my uncle don after him, my mother's friend billie and her new husband fred--and, of course, the club.  object lessons all to young mike of the pitfalls of alcohol.

and they stuck for a long time--i got drunk exactly once in high school.  at college parties, i'd have one or two to be sociable.  when in my mid-thirties i finally came out and hit the bars, i'd buy a drink and carry it around all night just to have something in my hand.

why i waited this long to go from basic teetotaler to falling-down-drunk in five short years has already been dealt with in this blog--mostly pseudo-lightheartedly, 'cause god knows i didn't wanna scare my readers.

now that this blog is dead and i no longer have readers,  i can of course write whatever the fuck i want.

*     *     *     *     *

after four years, v and i hit our first rough patch this summer and our relationship folded like the cheap card table it apparently was.

i miss him every day, and can only hope that's what he really wanted.

*     *     *     *     *

invited myself over to kenny's the other night, asked him what was new in his life--it had been awhile.  he didn't disappoint.  eyes shining, he regaled me with tales of his recent trip to central america volunteering for doctors without borders, among all sorts of other gloriously selfless shit.

when he was done, he asked me what's new in my life, and i told him the truth.

he then tells me what i knew he would, which--fuck the sex, i realize later--is why i'm there.

i protest.  i'm not like him--i'm not warm, i don't do groups, i hate people and people hate me, i don't have charisma and i can't hold an audience in the palm of my hand like i've seen him do--i'm not like kenny, i'm not like anybody.

he looks me in the eye, says it again: "90 meetings in 90 days, mike.  you do it, i promise you'll come across someone who's story's just like yours, and when it happens it'll change you just like it did me.  i wouldn't have the life i have now if i hadn't done it, and you can do it, too."

yeah?  i'll have to drink on that one.

_________________

sober update: somebody asked me why my memories of people are always wrapped up with cars.  i dunno, they just are.

ode to the sweetest lil' truck there ever was

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as i detailed her for the last time today--ran my soapy sponge lovingly over every battle scar i'd carelessly inflicted upon her once-pristine sheetmetal, eradicated the last traces of spilled coke, melted chocolate and dropped ketchup-drenched french fries from her interior, thought about every angry, tire-screeching acceleration around every slow-moving asshole who'd ever dared impede my path--i contemplated the flawless, doglike devotion and pure, simple pleasure this humble little truck has given me in return.

i've never been careful when it comes to my vehicles, and god knows i was harder on this one than most; to this day, i can't remember where that first ding came from--i just looked up one day and there it was

and god, was i pissed.  but damage to a new car is like murder--once you get past that first one, it gets easier.

the next one, i halfway remember [i.e., i know i did it, i just don't remember the details]:

the one after that i remember clearly, if for no other reason than because it was a two-parter:  first, inflicting the initial minor damage by backing into a bollard at the 7-11 at olympic and la cienega

and then, furious at myself, peeling away and in the process of so doing, burning a significant amount of rubber off the rear tires whilst simultaneously tearing the bumper half off the damn truck in order to get free [and yes, alcohol may or may not have been involved].

the last one--from trying to park up under a tree and getting a little too close--might be due to simple carelessness, or maybe just my innate need for symmetry

whatever; outta all the vehicles i've ever owned in my semi-long life--and i'm talking a wide variety, including any number of high-end german ubermachines--this humble little '05 tacoma prerunner has unquestionably been the best of the bunch.

after almost six years and 70,000 miles of hard use [and with the exception of the minor damage outlined above], damn thing's still good as new:  tight and solid, engine still strong, paint glossy as ever, interior still perfect, never a single mechanical problem, ever.

of course it never even for a moment occurred to me to have any of the above shit fixed; on the contrary, coming as i do from a part of the country where people with "nice" pickups are dismissed as pussies, i consider each blemish a badge of honor.

hopefully her new owner will feel the same way.

believe it or not, i was once a brazen, entitled, ungrateful little fuck

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as i sat there at his funeral and listened to the [too-few] testimonials, i reflected that if every friend, relative, employee and/or stray country-singer-with-promise my uncle don had helped on his way to the top had shown up that day, the church woulda been filled to overflowing; as it was, the place was maybe a third full--world's full of ungrateful bastards, i thought.


and then i recalled the way i myself had once handled don's largesse and decided to cut the rest of the world a little slack.

picture it:  spring 1979

i'm 22 years old, three years outta high school, three aimless semesters of junior college and one at UT austin under my belt--depressed, directionless and adrift.

awakened from sleep one early afternoon by my roommate:  "your uncle don's on the phone--says it's important."

and indeed it is.  my dead father's very busy and very successful brother, who has only once before ever called me directly, has decided to light a fire under his nephew's lazy ass:  he offers to fully fund the remaining two years of my college education--room, board, tuition, books, walking-around money--everything.  all i have to do is finally settle on a major and get back to him; he'll do the rest.

nice, huh?

to this day, i dunno from what depths i managed to summon the chutzpah to do what i do a week later:  namely, call and tell don that instead of the two years of college he's offered, i've suddenly decided i wanna go to architecture school.  it's a five-year program, starting from scratch--not a problem, right?

to his credit, don not only doesn't blink, he flies me up two weeks later for lunch with him and one of tulsa's leading commercial architects--hell, he's researched the whole thing far more fully than i have.

see, here's the thing about uncle d--he listened.  when you talked to him about anything of substance, he always had a legal pad, took copious notes, handed 'em off to his secretary to be typed up and added to your file--not that he ever forgot anything, of course.

i'm last-minute-accepted into the UT architecture program commencing fall '79, and don gives me a big check covering all my first-year expenses--except for a car, which i need because my old honda's dying.

he gives me a choice:  (a) a new car; or (b) one of his VP's cast-off company cars.  i decide that, having already taken a mile, i might as well settle for an inch this time [and besides, don's VP's cars are always fabulous, right?].

unfortunately, VP homer p. turns out to be a chrysler guy.

there's technically nothing wrong with the new yorker--it's big and plush and relatively new--but from the moment i climb inside that loose, rattly old-ladymobile and turn the key, it's alien and wrong and i hate everything about it.

homer actually showed up at the funeral; i briefly debated telling him he had shitty taste in cars, but, being sober, went with the "my uncle always spoke highly of you" option instead.

to my credit, i endure the thing for almost a month before i ditch it for a vehicle which i deem far more appropriate to a serious young student embarking upon a rigorous course of study at a major university; i.e.,

how, you ask?  simple--i unload the new yorker at top dollar to neville, who has suddenly found himself flush with cash.

wait--have i never talked about neville?

neville:  (a) assistant athletic director at tyler junior college; (b) my mother's then-boyfriend; (c) the reason i got straight A's in gym for three semesters without ever once showing up; and (d) [since they played football together back in the day, and most pertinent to this story] my uncle d's newest business partner in a nursery venture which was created to exploit neville's legendary green thumb.

"so, mike," my uncle d sits me down and gently explains to me that summer at grand lake when he finds out about my brilliant deal:  "just so you understand, i ended up buying that new yorker three times--first, for my company; then, for you; and last but not least, for neville."

of course in my stupid, self-centered youth, i hadn't put that one together--but lemme tell you, i'll never forget how small i felt when i realized what i'd done.

i'll never forget what happened next, either--uncle d put his arm around my shamed, dejected shoulders, gave me a squeeze and said, "don't worry about it--it's ok."

and then--because he always used music to deflect shit--he said, "here, listen to this--willie and ray price just put out an album, and you gotta hear what they did with this song."

while neville's nursery would turn out to be but one of many failed business ventures don would sink his money into in order to help out a friend--and god knows i'd scorch the landscape of texas in that spitfire before it finally burned out--willie and ray's version of bob wills' faded love will forever and rightfully endure in my mind as a memento not only of that grand summer, but of the man who made it and so many other things possible.

here's to you, uncle d.

the simca

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back from austin yesterday.


not a pleasure trip, but it had its moments--dinner with my mother, my sister and her boyfriend on my last night in town, for instance.


end of a great meal and we're relaxed around the dinner table.  marcus and i are of an age and, being texas boys and all, naturally the talk turns to high school and cars.  his first was a '64 ford galaxie 500--and mine?


"'71 corolla," i start to reply, but i'm cut off in mid-sentence by my mother's flat pronouncement:


"no, michael--you're forgetting the simca."


i blank for a second, and then . . . oh yeah, the simca.  she was right--for better or worse, it had been my first car.


i turn to her, astonished. "ma, i had that thing for maybe all of three weeks--how could you possibly . . ."


and then it all comes flooding back, and i start laughing.  "oh yeah, i guess you would remember the simca, wouldn't you?"


she doesn't join in. 

picture it:  tyler, texas, summer of 1972

it was a faded periwinkle blue--a ridiculous, boxy little thing that looked pretty much the same coming and going, but i was inordinately proud of it.  yeah, it was butt-ugly, but it was a car, goddammit, and it was all mine.

even back then $200 didn't buy you much car, but when (a) you're a 15-year-old kid making $1.25 an hour slaving away part-time at the local sizzler and that's all you've managed to accumulate; and (b) an older co-worker suddenly sees a way to rid himself of a problem for just the amount of money you happen to have--well, you do the math.

it started smoking before i even got it home, but i didn't care--i washed and waxed it with loving care, started it every morning and counted the days until i turned 16 and got my license.

meanwhile, there was driver's ed to get through--and that particular summer, it was held not at the high school which i would attend in the coming fall, but at the other one way on the other side of town.  my friend bruce and i carpooled--his mother took us one week, my mother the next.

and lemme tell ya, that shit started early.  and while bruce's mother was invariably made-up and dressed to the nines in the morning, my mother generally was not--with her, it was usually pajamas, a bathrobe, hair wild and askew, coffee cup in one hand and cigarette in the other--not a pretty picture under the best of circumstances.

i don't remember which week it was when i talked her into driving us over in the simca--she didn't want to do it; she hadn't driven a stick in years and she mistrusted the damn car, but she did it for me, god love her.

we made it over there fine; it was only after she dropped us off, turned around and attempted the climb back up the hill that the thing died.

it took all eight of the boys in our driver's ed class--each one reassuring my mortified mother that she looked beautiful in her bathrobe--to get the simca going fast enough so that she could pop the clutch and get it started.

she put-putted off in a cloud of smoke and i forgot all about her.

it was only later that i found out that the simca died again halfway home, and that she had to get out and walk two miles--barefoot, in pajamas and a bathrobe, hair wild and askew, coffee cup in one hand and cigarette in the other--over to rachel and j.c.'s house and call a tow truck.

the simca never recovered, but my mother (mostly) did.

this one's from back when cars and songs on the radio still meant something

[and because it came up on shuffle tonight]

it's sometime after midnight on a cold, starlit evening in 1990 and i'm flying westward at 90 mph across the barren new mexico desert in my brother's pristine '72 lincoln mark iv [why? don't ask].

cigarette in my left hand, big gulp between my legs and thoroughly sick of the three eight-track tapes that came with the car, i'm scanning the empty AM dial for something--anything--when the auto-seek locks onto some obscure country station somewhere featuring a song i'd never heard before but which has me from note one.

when the signal suddenly fades just as the guy's bringing it home, i slam on the brakes, slew sideways across three lanes of I-10 to a screeching, smoking halt and reverse at high speed back to where it comes in clear again.

if you're one of those people who has never understood country music, i urge you to listen to this track all the way to the end, because it comes about as close to perfect as any country song ever recorded.

and unlike me, you won't have to sit in the middle of a deserted freeway to do so.

let's try this again

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[this was supposed to have been last weekend's post, and for a minute it was--until i dragged my ass outta bed the next morning, saw the horrific left turn it had somehow taken the night before and yanked it immediately.

maybe one of these days i'll learn: write drunk, publish sober.]

six oldsmobiles and a chevy




one of the great things about maintaining a blog is that random shit like this--a sudden urge to scour the internet for pictures of every car my family owned while i was growing up--becomes a concrete, frozen memory for all the world (or at least, all eleven of my readers) to see.

as is often the case, what started out as a simple, straightforward pictorial has turned into yet another lengthy, anecdote-filled tale from my past--feel free to skip all the prose and just look at the pictures.



i must admit, i've been brooding about the sad, sorry demise of general motors [because make no mistake, that's what it was] ever since it happened--for me, it truly was the end of an era.

see, i grew up in a time in america when there were only three tv networks and three car companies--namely, GM, ford and chrysler--of any real consequence. while a family might be permitted to promiscuously flip from NBC to CBS to ABC on their televisions, cars were different--folks back then tended to pick a brand and stick with it through thick and thin.

our family? we were GM people--more particular to my branch of the tree (i.e., the ones who couldn't afford cadillacs), we were oldsmobile people, goddammit.

the following is the first car of which i have any recollection:

1. 1956 oldsmobile holiday 88 sedan



ours wasn't anywhere near this fun; it was solid white on the outside, but even more red in its interior than the above--more [in fact, exactly] like this:


can you youngsters of today even imagine riding around in a car like this?

long before seatbelts and car-seats shackled the weak impulses of the meek, cowed, ritalin-drugged youth of today, my little brother and i would bounce wildly from front-seat to back in our holiday 88's vast interior, beating each other senseless and screeching maniacally as our mother careened down the road, all windows open in the stifling houston heat, cigarette in one hand whilst screaming and slapping around behind her in a vain attempt to control us with the other.

god, those were the days.


2. 1964 oldsmobile jetstar 88 sedan

our family's first new car.


once again, ours wasn't anywhere near this fun--it wasn't red, and it never ventured anywhere near the slopes.

in fact, its first iteration (so i'm told) was a dark, drab green--my father, having traded in the holiday 88 and picked out our new car without consulting my mother [he had a tendency to do unilateral shit like that], was apparently totally unprepared for her tearful reaction to his nice surprise.

by the time i got home from school that day--i remember it was cold and raining, and kennedy was freshly dead--a neighbor had been dragged in to watch my brother and sister, and my parents were on their way back to the dealership to pick out something my mother could live with. i sat there in front of the tv, literally beside myself with excitement at the prospect of a new car, and counted the minutes until they got back.

i still remember hearing them pull into the driveway, dashing to the back door and flinging it open to watch as our shiny new car, droplets of rain beading across its sleek, sky-blue hood, rolled into the garage.

it looked exactly like this (only much more shiny):


they piled us all into the car, and we went for a ride. it was a miracle machine--i mean, you pushed a button on the dash and ice-cold air emerged, for chrissakes--who'd've ever thought? and my mother could move the thing from lane to lane with a finger, such was the magic of power steering--and the heady new-car smell emerging from its plastic royal-blue interior i remember to this day, but can't even begin to describe.

and, like its predecessor--in fact, like all full-sized GM cars of that era--it was big and powerful and fast: stomp on the gas, and that big v-8 would lay you back in your seat as it leapt forward to claim the road.

ultimately, the jetstar would prove no more durable than the life we thought would go on forever--by late 1970 we were fatherless, near-penniless and sorely in need of a new car.

enter the deus ex machina known around our house as uncle don.

3. 1969 oldsmobile cutlass supreme holiday coupe



that sweet little cutlass--i remember it well.

don drove it down one night, told us it was ours [it had been his company car--he'd bought out the lease so his dead brother's widow would have a decent car to drive], swapped his keys for ours, gave my mom a hug and immediately headed back north to tulsa in the by-then decrepit jetstar (which would overheat twice before he managed to make it home) because he had to work the next day.

incomparably beautiful, our new car was a sleek, glistening, metallic tobacco brown, looking like it had been built for nothing but speed. after don left, we walked around it a few times, just gawking.

my recollections of that first drive (cross-town, to pick up my little sister at her dance class): it was dusk, a light rain was falling, the wipers and air were on low, the rich brown interior was redolent of don's cigars, neil diamond's "cracklin' rosie" was playing softly on the radio, and at every red light to which we smoothly rolled to a stop, my mother and i just looked at each other and shook our heads in disbelief at how goddam lucky we were.

needless to say, we loved that car.

and it served us nobly and well and with great style until, newly-minted driver's license in hand, yours truly managed to single-handedly deliver the one-two punches that finished it off.


4. 1971 oldsmobile custom cruiser station wagon



[i decided fore-and-aft pictures of this monstrosity were necessary in order to attempt to convey an accurate impression of its sheer size.]

practically the only person who was happy about the cutlass's premature demise was my uncle don's wife, pat--it gave her the perfect excuse to pawn the big green albatross she'd been dying to get rid of onto us.

dubbed "the titanic" by my mother immediately upon delivery, it remains to this day the largest, heaviest, most ponderously unnavigable non-commercial vehicle i've ever driven.

and by "driven," what i really mean is, you gripped the wheel of this cushy, softly-sprung motherfucker, squared your shoulders, sighted across the length of its vast hood, aimed it in the general direction you wanted it to go, hit the gas and hoped for the best--seriously, on the best of days, driving this thing was like navigating a ship on the high seas.

and fuel economy? yeah--you could push the pedal, hear that mighty 455 v-8 roar and literally watch the needle drop towards "e" before it ever started to move.

i used it a couple times for booze runs, though--boy, did it load up nice. the suspension, such as it was, was never quite the same afterwards.

and then there was the time a dozen of my closest friends and i accidentally backed her into the lake with the tailgate down--the electrical system, such as it was, was never quite the same afterwards.

my most enduring memory of this car: my mother grabbing the keys whenever she walked out the door, sighing and saying to no one in particular, "i sure miss my little cutlass."

salvation would come two years later with the arrival of the ringer in this humble little post.


1973 chevrolet caprice classic


by this time, uncle don had graduated from being a vice-president buying out leases on cars owned by his employer to being the employer buying out leases on his own vice-presidents' cars, which is how ma got the caprice.

and even though it delivered her from the titanic, my mother hated this car from day one (i think for no other reason than because it was black-on-black, and god knows she had a history of distaste for dark-colored cars).

i, on the other hand, loved it--it was big and elegant and smooth and powerful, and as soon as i drove it i swapped her immediately for my new lipstick-red '76 malibu classic, and everybody was happy.

this state of affairs would continue for a year or so, until something unexpected and marvelous happened.


5. 1976 oldsmobile delta 88 royale coupe


'big red,' we called her--she was a total fluke.

what happened was, a vice-president in don's company to whom pat [with whom you really didn't wanna fuck] had taken a particular dislike chose to prove her instincts correct by abruptly quitting and cashing in his stock options--don made all his people shitloads of money, and they mostly crapped on him in return--at a most inopportune time.

[said vp had good taste in cars, though, and had spent a lot of time carefully factory-ordering this one. my aunt pat, upon seeing it for the first time, decided it would be perfect for my mother.]

when said vp walked into my uncle's office to pick up his final check, don's secretary, barbara, told him to leave the keys to his car on her desk.

when he protested--don always let his departing executives take their cars--barbara flatly reiterated, "don said to leave your keys."

the vp in question slammed the keys down on her desk, snatched his final paycheck outta her hand and stalked out.

don, of course, knew nothing about any of this--all he knew was, his most-recently departed vp had for some inexplicable reason left the keys to his gorgeous, practically-new company car behind, thus providing a new car for...guess who?

pat, laughing, called my mother, filled her in on her machiavellian machinations and said, "act surprised when he calls you with the good news, ok?"

don flew her up to pick up the car, which was firemist red with a white vinyl top and whorehouse-velour interior [identical to the above, minus the pimped-out wheelz]--my mother finally had the car of her dreams.

she called me as soon as she got home: "honey, i thanked everybody, climbed behind the wheel of that thing, stopped at the first 7-11 i came across, bought two packs of cigarettes, a big coke with lots of ice and the eight-track of saturday night fever, cranked up the volume, thanked god for all that was good and holy and boogied all the way home."

god, she loved that car--and so did i.

see, at 21, having been born, bred and fully-acclimated to the marque, i had come to the belief that (a) there was nothing in this world to compare with the sheer majesty and power of a full-size, liberally-optioned general motors automobile; and (b) this particular car exemplified all that was and had ever been good about GM.

here's the only picture i have of big red [she was mine by the time this was taken], parked next to my brother's graduation-present jeep in the lot of the adjacent uncle-don-supplied condos he and i enjoyed whilst attending college on (you guessed it) uncle don's nickel--god, we were so insufferably spoiled, but that's a post for another day.


[in case you're wondering, this picture was taken not because of the car, but because it was a rare snow day in austin.]

all of the foregoing is what makes the final installment of this post so sadly paradoxical, because after '76, it was all downhill for GM--that's when the downsizing began.

and i'm not just talking mass--i'm talking vision.


6. 1982 oldsmobile cutlass supreme coupe


christmas, 1981--gathered together in tulsa, we watched as my mother opened the box containing the keys to the first truly-new car she had owned since that long-ago day when she and my father had rolled into our garage in the jetstar 88.

and, as always, don and pat meant well--it wasn't their fault that the new car they offered up to my mother was but a pale, scaled-down imitation of the mighty oldsmobiles that had come before it.

i mean, look at that sad, pitiful, downsized, impersonal piece of corporately-designed shit up there, and imagine having to reluctantly climb into its diminished quarters after having spent four glorious years in #5 above, not to mention all the full-bodied cars that had come before it--and trust me, the thing was as cheap, tinny, ungainly and underpowered as it looks.

my mother handled the transition graciously, of course--and, much to my delight, i ended up with big red for the remainder of my college career.

[what ultimately happened to big red, you ask? she and i ended up participating in a t-bone collision (refreshingly, not my fault) from which we both rolled away relatively unscathed, whilst our opponents--a drunk and his flimsy post-1976 GM piece-of-shit--were (a) badly shaken up, and (b) totaled, respectively.]

of course, several cars have occupied my mother's driveway since, but not a single one has come close to being as distinctive or memorable as even the least of the foregoing.

R.I.P., GM--you will be missed.