You know what’s Crazy? I’ll tell you what’s Crazy™
Your 1st car.
They say you always remember your 1st.
I remember mine.
She was black and sleek and whined when you got her in gear.
I don’t think 1973 was a good year for wine, but it was a pretty good year for hand me down cars.
Mine was a Capris.
She was a four speed, two door, four cylinder tin can.
But she was mine. It was wheels and freedom and everything a 16 year old boy has never had.
My Aunt gave me the car as a gift.
What a gift it was.
It transformed me from a bi-ped, hitch-hiking, thumb-out, teenage-mutant.
My 1st car gave me independence, a sense of self.
It was a rolling identity, a chick magnet.
Well, maybe not a chick magnet. Probably not much of a rolling identity either.
But it was four wheels and it was mine.
In some way you are born, but life doesn’t begin till you get your 1st set of wheels.
My Capris was gray. It was boring ass, old lady gray. It was mundane, drive in the right hand lane dull.
But nothing in life is permanent. So I decided to make this car my own car.
I needed it to look like I felt. I needed it to reflect the crazy unpredictableness of a 16 year old.
What did I do?
I did what any pimple faced, testerone laced, mutant teenage driver would do.
I painted the car black, then and I wince as I write this.
I spray painted the wheels gold.
Yes. gold.
Yes King Tut Gold.
I don’t know. Don’t ask. That brain has long ago been exterpated.
I spray painted the wheels gold.
So I have a black car with gold rims.
No I was not pimping whores in Carmel California.
But I could have.
This story gets worse.
I went to the automotive store and bought pin stripes.
Yes, I bought pin stripes.
I dont even think you can buy pin stripes now-a-days. It’s probably outlawed in most states.
And I didn’t buy just any pin stripes. I bought orange pin stripes.
ORANGE PIN STRIPES.
I should have been arrested for youthful indiscretion.
My dad should have been investigated by DCS for letting me do it.
So now you get the picture.
Black Capris. Orange pin stripes. Gold Wheels.
“1 ADAM 12 see a pimp about a carmel moving violation”
Why the police didn’t pull me over every time I left the driveway is miraculous.
I was a visual infraction.
How the hookers in Seaside California didn’t call me pimp daddy is amazing.
I was a teenage huggy bear with Wallabees.
Black car. Orange Pin stripes. Gold rims.
OH MY.
Did my friends call me idiot? Of course.
Did they ride with me? You bet.
A black and gold and orange pimp mobile.
“Hey surfer girls. Wanna ride?”
We must have been embarassing like a lip model with herpes.
Why did girls get in my car.
If only their daddy’s knew their baby girls were driving with a beach pimp.
And then there’s my dad. Why did you let me do it dad?
Were you asleep at the parenting wheel?
When you saw me with the spray paint cans and pin stripes, couldn’t you have stepped up.
“Son. I’m saving you from yourself. You’ll thank me later,” you could have said it.
Giving a teenager a spray paint can and pin stripes is like letting a baby suck a pacifer soaked in Jack Daniels.
Manny Moe & Jack would be horrified.
Why I thought I was cool speaks to how dumb you can be at 16 years of age.
I was reminded of this today as I brought my son with me to Moody’s.
Moody’s is a tire place. It’s been around for 60 years.
The cars are parked 3 deep on a Saturday morning. The waiting room is packed with people drinking coffee watching a too small tv on top of a soda machine that still sells Fanta.
The counter is manned by family members of the original owner. In this sleepy little town, Moody’s is a mechanical place of legend.
In a world of fast food, microwave quick, instantaneous connectivity, Moody’s is a throw back.
It’s crowded and slow.
It’s a lug nut, an air wrench, a set of white walls ready to be balanced.
Why do people come to Moody’s?
Service. Dependability. Accountability.
If your car doesn’t need it, they’ll tell you so.
They don’t need your money. they pride themselves on their reputation.
So I am in Moody’s today with my son.
He’ll be 16 years old in 11 days. His grandmother gave him her SUV.
It is big like a tank. It is roomy like a barn. It is aerodynamic like an igloo with wheels. It gets the same gas mileage as a H.S. gymnasium.
When you drive a car you need to be responsible. Part of that is making sure you have proper tire pressure and fluid levels.
I brought him to Moody’s to experience the ground roots of car ownership.
Stand at the counter. Tell the old guy with Moody’s motor oil running through his blood what you need.
In this case it’s an oil change and an alignment and a tire balance.
If you take care of your car, it will take care of you.
My son will never turn his big white SUV orange. There will be no gold rims, no pin stripes.
I won’t let it happen.
He wouldn’t do it . He’s a different generation.
Kids now-a-days aren’t pimps.
They are respectable.
They don’t need pin stripes. They have the Twitter.
Soon the kid will back out of the driveway on his own. Soon he will drive out of the subdivision and I will lose track of exactly where he is. He will be free, driving down the highway, completing a 16 year old right of passage.
I’m excited for him to get behind the wheel, to exert his own independent force on the universe.
His car is white.
It will stay white.
He’ll have to create the flash of pinstripes some other way.
Life’s Crazy™