LJ Idol Survivor: Final Immunity Challenge, Day 4

[flipflop_diva]

Ever since I can remember, my dad has had a fondness for cars, although his fondness extends mostly to two cars in particular: his 1956 MG and a Porsche.

The Porsche was always a sore spot when I was growing up. He’d had it when he met my mom. It was the car they drove in when they had their first date. It was also the car they were sitting in when he spontaneously proposed, and my mom said yes. Then, four years later, it was the car they took me home from the hospital in after I was born.

Yet the problem with the Porsche was that it was a sports car, not a family car. So after I was born, it got sold.

My dad blamed my mother for this. For years and years and years, he would always complain whenever the subject came up (and somehow it seemed to come up a lot). “Your mom made me sell my Porsche,” he would always say sadly.

But at the same time, my mom apparently cried after he sold it since it contained so many good memories.

We’ll just say, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, and I’ll never actually know it.

He probably could have bought a new one at some point in time, but he never did. At least not when my mom was alive. After she passed away and he had bought a new house that was closer to Palm Springs than L.A., where we grew up, he called me up on the phone one night, very excited about something.

“Guess what I bought!” he said.

“A Porsche?” I guessed, because that is what my sister and I always guessed when he told us he was going to buy something or other.

But this time the answer was yes. And this one was much fancier than the one he had when I was born. It was also about 40 years newer.

Sometimes, when I go to visit him, he lets me ride in it. But he doesn’t let me drive it, and I don’t ask. Everyone knows that’s Dad’s car.

--

The MG has a completely different history than the Porsche. I’m not sure when my dad bought it or where it came from, but I do know he had it before I was born.

My first memories of it are sitting in the backseat as he drove us around town on errands. Of course, there were no seat belts or anything resembling any sort of safety measures in the backseat. Honestly, it was barely even a backseat. Just a little bench that only small kids could even fit on.

It was a convertible too, and my dad almost always drove with the top down. I used to love sitting back there, leaning over the side and feeling the wind whip through my hair and sting my eyes. And then having my dad lift me out when we arrived at our destination because there were no doors or anything like that.

Every year, on Fourth of July, my dad would enter the MG in the little community parade in the town just north of ours. We had family friends who lived there, and my dad and their dad would sit in the front seats of the MG as my dad drove the parade route while the two other girls who were about my age and I would be squashed together in the back.

We’d throw peppermints out to the crowd and wave and smile. Then we’d get home and eat our weight in donuts that one of the moms had gone out to get.

At some point, though, probably when I was around five or six, the MG broke down, and my dad decided he could just fix it himself. But instead of fixing it right away, he parked it carefully in the garage and covered it with a pale green tarp.

For the next ten to fifteen years, my memories of my dad’s MG involve mostly avoiding even touching the tarp, because it somehow became infested with crickets.

Every once in a while, my dad would uncover the car, clear out the crickets, pull out all his tools and spend a couple days tinkering with it. Sometimes he could get it started. Once or twice he even pulled it out of the driveway. But it always died again before he could even make it halfway down the block.

Still, though, my dad loved that car and wouldn’t even consider selling it. He used to tell me if I learned to drive stick, he would let me drive it when I was old enough. I used to tell him, it was okay, I didn’t need to.

When he moved out to Yucaipa (the city closer to Palm Springs), the MG — and its tarp — moved with him. A couple years later, he retired, giving him much more time to work on fixing his little old car back up.

At one point, he did get it working. He tested it, driving up and down the streets of his neighborhood, and everything was operating perfectly.

So he decided to take it for a spin on the freeway, and he took my stepmom, Sharon, with him. They made it to their destination — a little restaurant they had always wanted to try — but halfway back, it died right there in the slow lane. They had to call a tow-truck for help.

Sharon said later it was the scariest ride of her life — even at its fastest, the MG doesn’t go more than 50 miles per hour. She also said she was never riding it in again.

My dad was not deterred. He got his car home, got out his tools and got to work.

Every once in a while, he gets it working again and takes it out for a ride. Then, when it inevitably dies, he gets back out his tools and gets back to fixing it up.

I talked to him this past weekend. He’d been planning to do yard work, but the weather was overcast and foggy.

“Maybe I’ll work on the MG,” he said. “I think it’s almost ready to be driven again.”

On the other end of the line, I smiled. It’s nice to know that some things, no matter how much time passes, really do never change.







Nonfiction. I have a photo of my dad and his MG somewhere. I wish I could find it. Or the pictures of us kids crammed in the back.




Thank you for reading! This was written for therealljidol: Survivor Idol! We're at the final immunity challenge now, so there's no voting. We just write an entry every day until only one person is left standing.

That said, if you want to read the entries, you can find them all here.

Comments

[murielle]

I think there is a special love men have for their cars, something that most women just can't relate to no matter how hard we try. It's nice that your dad was able to keep the MG regardless of whether or not he could drive it, and that he was finally able to replace his porche.

Lovely story, hon. <3

[adoptedwriter]

Awww. My uncle had an MG. It was a stick. He started to teach me how to drive a stick in it. It was ok but I’m lazy and just want to drive simple. He liked having a stick because it made him think.

[gunwithoutmusic]

Hahaha wow - this reminds me so much of my own dad. He was an auto racer, and when I was in high school, he managed to procure the first car that he ever raced in and in sat in the basement while he worked on it during his hobby time. Never did manage to get it running again, but I don't think that was really the point. :)

[halfshellvenus]

It's funny-- my dad had an MG convertible when I was a little kid too, and we would go for rides in the back on the "non-seat" with the top-down. Not sure what year, but I think it had a mounted spare on the back.

What my dad REALLY liked to do once in a while was take it out with the Great Dane sitting in the passenger seat (which was on the left side). My dad would have his driving-cap on (it looked like upholstery). When he saw oncoming traffic in the distance, he would crouch down as low as he could get while still being able to peek over the steering wheel, so that it looked as if the dog was driving the car. \o?

The beloved Porsche in our case was my mom's, a 911 Targa. It was fantastic, and she loved it. But my dad kept nagging her that it was more inconvenient to repair (it rarely needed to be repaired), and she finally sold it. We were in college then, so it wasn't on our behalf! Sad, too. My dad could be really controlling, and after 10+ years of nagging, my mom finally gave in. Other things she loved suffered the same fate farther on. :(

[alycewilson]

A nice portrait of your father. My brother had an MG convertible for a while in college. Still remember cruising around on country roads with him!