The Saturday Ramble
Friday, April 05, 2002
CARS I HAVE LOVED
My little silver car with the orange nose sits abandoned, for the time at least, on the side of my urban street. When I turn it on, the “check engine” light glows an admonition at me. I did check it, I even checked the oil – the only proactive checking I know how to do – but the oil was fine and the light remains implacable. So it’s the bus and subway, for a few days, until I get myself together to take my little silver car to the shop.
It’s another in a long string of car trials.
As I’ve mentioned before, I love to drive, and I tend to drive pretty fast, with one hand, the other hanging out the window, adjusting the music, holding a hamburger, fiddling with the phone – something other than driving. It’s a long-term love – I went on my 16th birthday to get my learner’s permit (the state police officer administering it sang happy birthday to me), got my license about two months later, and it’s been hard to pry me from behind the wheel since.
Except, of course, when the mechanics of the car defeat me.
I took my driver’s test in a 1974 Chevy Impala station wagon, about the size of today’s average stretch limo, only wider. But I managed, even passed parallel parking. The first car I owned was also a station wagon – a hand me down from my parents, a 1970-something LeMans station wagon. The less said about it the better, other than it was pretty handy for piling in a bunch of sleepy college girls heading to the gym for a 6 a.m. gym class and – since it was Florida – to the beach.
The real fun didn’t start until I traded cars with my brother in law, when my sister was pregnant with their first child. They wanted the station wagon. I was gracious and agreed to accept his in return – a 1976 black Chevrolet Camaro with black vinyl seats, Mag wheels and a hot prowling growl. Mmmmm….wish I still had it. Kinda. Because it was hot, but in more ways than one – it didn’t have air conditioning.
Some things you learn to live around.
I got the car my senior year in college, 1983, and it wasn’t long before a friend of mine taught me how to power brake it – one foot on the gas, one on the brake, pressing down one as you lift off the other… and peeling out of wherever you are. It especially amused me to power brake it on my way to church, on Sunday mornings: peeling out at a light, ripping into the lot, turning off that growl – and climbing out in my neat, prim dress and heels, calmly strolling into the building.
The lack of air conditioning became more of an issue when I took my first real job, as a reporter for a small daily in Tennessee. I wanted to be cool, collected, smooth – a difficult image to project when you descend on a scene in loud blackness, emerging windblown and, in the dog days of hot September, with that liquid glow. Then… the door stuck. The old Camaros had very long, heavy doors that allowed access to the back seat, and over time the doors began to sag and damage the closing mechanism. Finally, the driver’s side door stopped latching at all, and I had to drive to the service station holding it closed. They did get it closed – but they had to order the parts to fix it, which took a couple of weeks, and in the interim, they said, “Don’t open it.”
Don’t open it? How was I going to get in? Climb through the window?
Yes.
So climb through the window I did, for over two weeks, except for the times I wore a dress and crawled in from the passenger side, more often than not catching the hem on the gear shift. The firefighters and police officers I saw on my daily reporter rounds thought that was very funny, and dubbed me “Daisy Duke” – a double meaning, since I also hailed from eastern Kentucky, another fact that amused them. The name stuck long after the car door was fixed.
My next car was prosaic by comparison, another hand-me-down from my parents – a blue Cutlass Supreme, sedate but roomy and air conditioned. What a blessing. My years with that car were uneventful, except for the time a guy in Newark changed my tire at a service station, and then wouldn’t let me leave until I agreed to have dinner with him. Or tried not to, any way. We stood in the gathering dusk of a spring evening, a misty rain falling, him between my car door and me, as he kept upping the ante – dinner next door. Ok, dinner at a place on the shore. Ok, dinner at the place on the shore and he would give me the cost of dinner if I didn’t like it. Ok, no dinner but he would drive me to my friends’ house. No no no. Finally I said, give me your card and I’ll call you when I’m back in town. He said, don’t do me any favors.
Men.
That was also the car that threw a rod, because I forgot (repeatedly) to check the oil. Oops. My dad, who was driving it at the time, was not happy – because he had asked me if I had checked the oil recently (to which I replied, injured, “Of course!”). Not long after, I upgraded to their next old car, a Pontiac Bonneville – back to tank status. Unexciting, boat-like, again perfect for piling with girlfriends and heading into whatever sunset looked good that day.
Finally, after many years of hand-me-downs, I bought my first new car.
My little silver car.
I shopped and shopped. I read books. I checked the “what should it cost?” books, and learned things I never wanted to know about car dealing – for instance, that car dealers are paid a bonus from the manufacturer for every car they sell, at the end of the year. Good information for negotiation purposes. I test drove several cars, settled on a little silver Nissan Sentra, and dragged my friend Bill to the dealership with me as backup, making him promise to keep his mouth shut unless I was about to pay more than the asking price for the car. We sat in the negotiation circle, me, Bill and John the salesman, who was almost literally salivating at the fine fish he was about to net. He said, what do you think would be a good price for this car? This was my response:
“John, we know that the asking price for this car is $17,000. However, we both also know that your actual cost on the car is $13,000, and you receive a $250 selling bonus for the car at the end of the year. So your final cost is $12,750. I think you could make a reasonable profit at $13,500. So that’s my offer.”
He nearly fainted. My friend wouldn’t look at me (he told me later he couldn’t, because he would have fallen out of his chair laughing at the salesman’s face). Of course that wasn’t the offer they accepted, but after some finagling, I got the car for $100 less than what Bill’s friend the bank loan officer had told him was a great price for it. For this reason, I love that car more than I would have anyway for its sunroof and glove-like driving fit.
It survived a few years in Kentucky unscathed, shiny and fun to drive. I had been in New Jersey less than a year when some college guy in a sports car, late to class, saw a parking space on his left and gunned his car to nab it. The only problem was, I was in the lane between him and the parking space, a little behind him on the 4-lane, one-way street. I stood on the brake, but still the right front corner of my car buried in the driver’s door of his car. Neither of us were hurt, but our cars were. The insurance money came the same time as my semester tuition bill, so little silver car continued with its rakish, one-eyed appearance until two Hispanic men in a vintage Cadillac stopped beside my car one day after class in Newark.
“I can fix that body damage,” said the driver, an earnest, heavy man in his 20s. “I have the tools in my car. I can do it cheap.”
Cheap sounded good. Knowing I was defying every lesson I’d ever had in safety, I let them follow me to a street near my house, then watched as the young guy took the tools out of his car and began pulling out the dents. The other man, in his 50s, with greased back Elvis hair and brown polyester pants sewn with gray thread up the back seam, regaled me with tales of the church where he preached. I listened to him and watched as the younger guy mixed some white thick paste and smeared it over the nose of my car. He smoothed it carefully, as the March afternoon turned colder and a light mix of snow and sleet began falling. It wouldn’t dry in this, he said, and he pulled out a can of white spray paint and a small torch. Soon the corner of my car had flames moving over it as he burnt the fumes from the spray paint with the torch, the heat drying the compound. He finished up with orange anti-rust paint, I paid them and off they went into the dark.
That is how my little silver car got its orange nose.
Last week I drove over something that messed up the muffler, so now it sounds like my Camaro without that sports car cachet. Then on Tuesday the engine light came on. I feel very New Jersey in my car, these days – a moving disaster.
But that’s okay. When I’m away from thousands of crazed drivers packed into tiny, confusing spaces; when I am again more gainfully employed and done with school; when I know the changes will stick, I will take my little silver car to someone who will admire her, as I do, and fix her so she regains her outward charm. She never lost her inward charm, and I am still happy I bargained with the salesman and brought her home with me.
Even if, for now, I’m going to be riding the subway. ¶ 7:24 PM 0 Comments
My little silver car with the orange nose sits abandoned, for the time at least, on the side of my urban street. When I turn it on, the “check engine” light glows an admonition at me. I did check it, I even checked the oil – the only proactive checking I know how to do – but the oil was fine and the light remains implacable. So it’s the bus and subway, for a few days, until I get myself together to take my little silver car to the shop.
It’s another in a long string of car trials.
As I’ve mentioned before, I love to drive, and I tend to drive pretty fast, with one hand, the other hanging out the window, adjusting the music, holding a hamburger, fiddling with the phone – something other than driving. It’s a long-term love – I went on my 16th birthday to get my learner’s permit (the state police officer administering it sang happy birthday to me), got my license about two months later, and it’s been hard to pry me from behind the wheel since.
Except, of course, when the mechanics of the car defeat me.
I took my driver’s test in a 1974 Chevy Impala station wagon, about the size of today’s average stretch limo, only wider. But I managed, even passed parallel parking. The first car I owned was also a station wagon – a hand me down from my parents, a 1970-something LeMans station wagon. The less said about it the better, other than it was pretty handy for piling in a bunch of sleepy college girls heading to the gym for a 6 a.m. gym class and – since it was Florida – to the beach.
The real fun didn’t start until I traded cars with my brother in law, when my sister was pregnant with their first child. They wanted the station wagon. I was gracious and agreed to accept his in return – a 1976 black Chevrolet Camaro with black vinyl seats, Mag wheels and a hot prowling growl. Mmmmm….wish I still had it. Kinda. Because it was hot, but in more ways than one – it didn’t have air conditioning.
Some things you learn to live around.
I got the car my senior year in college, 1983, and it wasn’t long before a friend of mine taught me how to power brake it – one foot on the gas, one on the brake, pressing down one as you lift off the other… and peeling out of wherever you are. It especially amused me to power brake it on my way to church, on Sunday mornings: peeling out at a light, ripping into the lot, turning off that growl – and climbing out in my neat, prim dress and heels, calmly strolling into the building.
The lack of air conditioning became more of an issue when I took my first real job, as a reporter for a small daily in Tennessee. I wanted to be cool, collected, smooth – a difficult image to project when you descend on a scene in loud blackness, emerging windblown and, in the dog days of hot September, with that liquid glow. Then… the door stuck. The old Camaros had very long, heavy doors that allowed access to the back seat, and over time the doors began to sag and damage the closing mechanism. Finally, the driver’s side door stopped latching at all, and I had to drive to the service station holding it closed. They did get it closed – but they had to order the parts to fix it, which took a couple of weeks, and in the interim, they said, “Don’t open it.”
Don’t open it? How was I going to get in? Climb through the window?
Yes.
So climb through the window I did, for over two weeks, except for the times I wore a dress and crawled in from the passenger side, more often than not catching the hem on the gear shift. The firefighters and police officers I saw on my daily reporter rounds thought that was very funny, and dubbed me “Daisy Duke” – a double meaning, since I also hailed from eastern Kentucky, another fact that amused them. The name stuck long after the car door was fixed.
My next car was prosaic by comparison, another hand-me-down from my parents – a blue Cutlass Supreme, sedate but roomy and air conditioned. What a blessing. My years with that car were uneventful, except for the time a guy in Newark changed my tire at a service station, and then wouldn’t let me leave until I agreed to have dinner with him. Or tried not to, any way. We stood in the gathering dusk of a spring evening, a misty rain falling, him between my car door and me, as he kept upping the ante – dinner next door. Ok, dinner at a place on the shore. Ok, dinner at the place on the shore and he would give me the cost of dinner if I didn’t like it. Ok, no dinner but he would drive me to my friends’ house. No no no. Finally I said, give me your card and I’ll call you when I’m back in town. He said, don’t do me any favors.
Men.
That was also the car that threw a rod, because I forgot (repeatedly) to check the oil. Oops. My dad, who was driving it at the time, was not happy – because he had asked me if I had checked the oil recently (to which I replied, injured, “Of course!”). Not long after, I upgraded to their next old car, a Pontiac Bonneville – back to tank status. Unexciting, boat-like, again perfect for piling with girlfriends and heading into whatever sunset looked good that day.
Finally, after many years of hand-me-downs, I bought my first new car.
My little silver car.
I shopped and shopped. I read books. I checked the “what should it cost?” books, and learned things I never wanted to know about car dealing – for instance, that car dealers are paid a bonus from the manufacturer for every car they sell, at the end of the year. Good information for negotiation purposes. I test drove several cars, settled on a little silver Nissan Sentra, and dragged my friend Bill to the dealership with me as backup, making him promise to keep his mouth shut unless I was about to pay more than the asking price for the car. We sat in the negotiation circle, me, Bill and John the salesman, who was almost literally salivating at the fine fish he was about to net. He said, what do you think would be a good price for this car? This was my response:
“John, we know that the asking price for this car is $17,000. However, we both also know that your actual cost on the car is $13,000, and you receive a $250 selling bonus for the car at the end of the year. So your final cost is $12,750. I think you could make a reasonable profit at $13,500. So that’s my offer.”
He nearly fainted. My friend wouldn’t look at me (he told me later he couldn’t, because he would have fallen out of his chair laughing at the salesman’s face). Of course that wasn’t the offer they accepted, but after some finagling, I got the car for $100 less than what Bill’s friend the bank loan officer had told him was a great price for it. For this reason, I love that car more than I would have anyway for its sunroof and glove-like driving fit.
It survived a few years in Kentucky unscathed, shiny and fun to drive. I had been in New Jersey less than a year when some college guy in a sports car, late to class, saw a parking space on his left and gunned his car to nab it. The only problem was, I was in the lane between him and the parking space, a little behind him on the 4-lane, one-way street. I stood on the brake, but still the right front corner of my car buried in the driver’s door of his car. Neither of us were hurt, but our cars were. The insurance money came the same time as my semester tuition bill, so little silver car continued with its rakish, one-eyed appearance until two Hispanic men in a vintage Cadillac stopped beside my car one day after class in Newark.
“I can fix that body damage,” said the driver, an earnest, heavy man in his 20s. “I have the tools in my car. I can do it cheap.”
Cheap sounded good. Knowing I was defying every lesson I’d ever had in safety, I let them follow me to a street near my house, then watched as the young guy took the tools out of his car and began pulling out the dents. The other man, in his 50s, with greased back Elvis hair and brown polyester pants sewn with gray thread up the back seam, regaled me with tales of the church where he preached. I listened to him and watched as the younger guy mixed some white thick paste and smeared it over the nose of my car. He smoothed it carefully, as the March afternoon turned colder and a light mix of snow and sleet began falling. It wouldn’t dry in this, he said, and he pulled out a can of white spray paint and a small torch. Soon the corner of my car had flames moving over it as he burnt the fumes from the spray paint with the torch, the heat drying the compound. He finished up with orange anti-rust paint, I paid them and off they went into the dark.
That is how my little silver car got its orange nose.
Last week I drove over something that messed up the muffler, so now it sounds like my Camaro without that sports car cachet. Then on Tuesday the engine light came on. I feel very New Jersey in my car, these days – a moving disaster.
But that’s okay. When I’m away from thousands of crazed drivers packed into tiny, confusing spaces; when I am again more gainfully employed and done with school; when I know the changes will stick, I will take my little silver car to someone who will admire her, as I do, and fix her so she regains her outward charm. She never lost her inward charm, and I am still happy I bargained with the salesman and brought her home with me.
Even if, for now, I’m going to be riding the subway. ¶ 7:24 PM 0 Comments
