Driving Me Crazy
Driving my automobile has changed dramatically for me. I started driving over fifty-four years ago, so some of that change is simply because of the passing years. Parkinson’s also has a great deal to do with it. Let’s just say that the fun of tooling around town with no particular purpose is gone. My shaky left foot, even though it thumps repeatedly on long trips, and my occasional twitching left hand, are not the problem. Since my limbs no longer jump immediately to my brain’s commands, working myself into the seat requires lots of positioning. The minute I get settled behind the wheel, I feel the need to concentrate more.
When I was sixteen I don’t think I concentrated on anything. There was too much going on all around me to stop and focus on any one thing…..which is why studying was so hard. While learning how to factor polynomials, I also had to learn how to fix the family car, especially if I needed it for Saturday night. My father had a theory about buying cars. He thought it was a virtual crime against the Supreme Beings of the Universe to pay any more than $1,000 for a vehicle that simply got one from one place to another. This severely limited his purchasing options. Ah, but he had tools, and he had a son that he appreciated even more when his offspring had bits of car rust in his hair, grease on his eyebrows, and scrape sores on his knuckles.
Despite the various states of disrepair, we took the Nash Ambassador or Desoto Powermaster or Packard Clipper for a ride out to the calm and countrified wilderness that was western New Jersey, and we invited my Aunt Marge and Uncle Ray along. We all expected breakdowns, and we were not disappointed. Flat tire? My father would ease the apprehensions. “Got two spares in the trunk [which were balder than the one needing replacement]. Ralph will change the tire, and we will still make Paterson by lunch.” Carburetor meltdown? “Butterfly valve is stuck. Ralph, pry the valve open with a stick and leave it there while I kick it over.” Nash dies on a hill in the Catskills? “Everybody out. We’ll push it up and over the hill and when it gets rolling I’ll jump start it.” And he did. “Simply getting from one place to another” was never simple and always an adventure with my father’s cars.
My family enjoyed crabbing at Point Pleasant or Tom’s River in New Jersey. The one and a half hour drive usually took three hours because my father eschewed paying the quarter toll every so many miles on the Garden State Parkway (another offense to the workingman’s gods). After all, he was already shelling out 20 cents a gallon for gas. So we took Route 9, a stop and go traffic route, made beastly if we got behind a slow moving tractor trailer. The heat would beat down on the Hudson Hornet, the sun bouncing off the hood and the glare alone exhausted us. Not many cars priced under $1,000 are fitted with air-conditioning, so we manually rolled down the windows, stuck our heads out and let the hot wind pound our faces. When we finally got to our destination, we took some time peeling our sweaty skins off the seats. The ride home was worse since we were all tired from crabbing in the salty air and under the summer sun.
The first car I used on a date was my father’s brand new Buick. That car, covered with Villanova Stickers inconveniently gave up the ghost in the St. Joseph’s parking lot following a Nova basketball victory. My next vehicle for getting me from here to there was a Rambler which had a tendency to cough when anyone, including a coed, was in the passenger seat. It was embarrassing, really, but the car was good on gas and I could work on it. Loaded with college classmates, we drove up the Jersey turnpike to New York City for a Madison Square Garden game. Somewhere around Newark I noticed the speedometer needle spinning wildly around until it burned itself to a nub. My father took me to one of his favorite junkyards (the owners of which he knew on a name-to-name basis) to locate a speedometer to replace the one that had self-immolated in my car. We found at least twenty 1958 Ramblers all of which had their speedometers removed. Hmmmmm. I never did replace it. “Officer, I did not know I was going that fast. Look, my speedometer burned out.”
At least back then I could work on my car. No longer. A year ago I lost my car Silver (I name my “steeds’), a Subaru Forester, when, while stopped at a light, the gentleman behind us decided not to stop at the light. We christened our new car, an Outback, the Enterprise because of all the safety features. Drifting out of my lane? BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Too close to the car in front of me? BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Car approaching when I am backing up? BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! The car in front of me has moved while I am taking a snooze? BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Price of oil rising in Outer Mongolia? BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! It even notifies me when The Enterprise needs an oil change. During the Vietnam War, the military was puzzled because despite all the safety features in the fighter jets, so many of them were being shot down. There were alarm systems to warn the pilot that he was being tracked by ground radar. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! There was the alarm that an actual missile was launched from the ground. BEEP! BEEP! BOOP! There was the warning that an enemy aircraft had spotted the jet. DING! DING! DING! And the warning that the enemy aircraft had launched a missile at the American plane. DING! DING! DONG! And a few more bells and rings. So with all these warning systems, why were a disproportionate number of planes brought down? Eventually a pilot sheepishly confessed, “Sir, with all these alarms ringing in the cockpit, we couldn’t concentrate on the mission so we turned the alarms off.”
I never turn the Enterprises systems off. But there is a trade off. I cannot work on my car anymore. I do not even recognize the parts of my automobile. Sometimes I do not even recognize the icon of the warming light that suddenly lists up. When I have a problem, I just have to trust the mechanic.
“Hi. One of my warning lights came on. The icon looks like an exclamation point surrounded by stars and a symbol from the Rosetta Stone.”
“I’ll check it out.”
Several hours later. “I figured out why your warning light came on. You need a five digit semi-automatic, fire proof Monongahela widget. Cost you five hundred Jackson’s.”
That is a lot of moolah. “Can I have a four digit?”
“No. They don’t make four digit semi-automatic Monongahela widgets.”
“Can I have a cheaper one that is not semi-automatic?”
“Nope. They don’t make non semi-automatics for this model.”
I did not want to give up the fire proof feature. “Okay, do what you have to do. By the way, what does the five digit semi-automatic, fire proof Monongahela widget do?
“It makes sure the cigarette lighter’s night light in the back seat works.”
Oh.
As comfortable as the Enterprise is, my Parkinson’s still makes every road trip an effort. The effort begins with getting seated. I have to shimmy my right leg just so to squeeze it under the steering wheel and into position on the accelerator. Once we get going, my legs and arms and eyesight are fine. My shaky left foot is annoying, but if I get the right radio station and the right music it thumps to a congruent rhythm. Sometimes an NPR interview with a goat herder from the Himalaya’s even slows it down. But oh do I concentrate. Not because I cannot see or hear or hit the brake. It is that, because of the Parkinson’s, I do not trust my brain. So I focus the entire trip. Of course, like other people my age, every time we exit the car at a gas station or rest area, I have to perform triage, checking which body parts are still functioning, and it takes a few steps to shake out the kinks in the legs and back. Lots of stretching and twisting and turning. Instead of, as in days of yore, always trying to make time, we now stop so our bodies do not permanently remain in the driving position, and my brain seems to appreciate the time out.
Especially after a long trip, my exiting the car resembles a drunken sailor staggering until he gets his land legs. But there are arrivals at certain destinations that make the long ride and intense concentration worth it….specifically the grandchildren who run out to meet us and jump into our arms. “Okay, Sweetpea. It is so good to see you. Just wait a second until granddaddy’s spine straightens out.”
My father was right. A car is simply a device to get one from here to there, but what gives the vehicle value is the delight and joy of the “there’s” and the comfort and security of the return to the “here.”