My neighbor up the street has acquired a classic car – I have no clue what make, model or year it is but it rumbles like all good old classics and I appreciate a good rumble. My husband, like most men, loved old cars – in the same fashion women appreciate nice shoes – he knew the finer qualities of various makes and models and could safely bet on the year any car was produced.
He had a knack for spotting a classic from a block away, he had automotive radar. More than that he could pick out a precise part for that classic car in a bin of rubble at a swap meet — an alternator, a hubcap — he had an eye. He called those classic cars ‘old girls’, and he had a thing for ‘old girls’. And he liked to buy them stuff.
When our son was fifteen he and his dad dismantled a 52 Chev pickup. At that time it was the only thing in our lives that was older than mom – a line that got a laugh from everyone except mom every time they used it. They spent hours at the shop after supper and on weekends. That truck went from a decent looking, running, ‘old girl’ to a skeleton propped against the walls of the shop and several hundred bins of nuts and bolts and miles of hose in no time flat. It took them more than a year to put her back together.
That truck became their bonding experience, their unspoken connection. She was a lesson in patience and a money pit but she was worth her weight in gold. She was a collective accomplishment and both of them strutted their stuff a little differently when the ‘old girl’ was around. Guys seem to do that, they morph into someone just little cooler, a little more James Dean-er, when they’re hanging out with ‘old girls’.
The new ‘old girl’ on our street is a bit of a celebrity, even I do a double take when she rumbles by. And like most drivers of classics my neighbor looks like a boss in the driver’s seat; his hand draped over the steering wheel and elbow propped on the open window ledge. He is rocking it. I gave them a ‘thumbs-up’ when they rumbled by the other day – a classic sign of appreciation from one old girl to another.