Blue Cars and Red Cars- A First Car Story

I started my first job with one goal in mind. Save enough money to buy a car when I turned sixteen. I was twelve at the time. I worked at a campground/marina on a large lake in North Carolina. I cleaned bathhouses, drove the garbage truck, mowed grass and slung weeds. For three summers, I spent all day Saturday and Sunday manning the gas dock. I started out at $1.85/hour and worked my way up to $2.85/hour. Several weeks before my sixteenth birthday I started shopping for a car. It was 1981 and I had saved $2,250. I would check out the classifieds every Sunday to find a cool car that I could buy with my savings. Every car that I liked was a little out of my price range. At the rate I made per hour, it would take months to have enough money to get the car I wanted.

 I watched as my friends showed up at school in Barracudas, Mustangs, Camaros, and Trans Ams.  Their parents were footing the bill. My Dad had promised that if I saved enough to buy a car, he would cover the insurance.  Just as I was losing hope, I found a car that was close to my price point. It was a “68 Mustang. Custom painted a deep red with lots of clear coats to make it look even redder. It had glass pack mufflers that made a beautiful rumbling sound as it idled. The price tag was $2500.  I talked to my parents. Dad arranged for my mother to pick up the car and bring it home so he and I could test it out and have his mechanic check it out.  I was excited! Mom reported that as she drove it to our house someone had challenged her to a drag race!

I fell in love with that car. Dad’s mechanic did not. He rattled off a whole bunch of work it would need and I’m sure that sealed Dad’s opinion. The seller was firm in his price of $2500. I asked my father to loan me $250 so that I could buy the ’68 “sure to be classic” car.  Dad asked, “Why would you pay all that money for an old car that needs a ton of work?” He pointed out that our neighbors had a nice car that was only three years old and they were selling it for $2,250. I could buy it and not have to borrow any money. Besides, it was newer and would not need all that work. So, I bought the neighbor’s car. If you know anything about cars, you will know what happened next when I tell you that my very first car that I spent my entire life savings on was an Audi Fox.

On my sixteenth birthday, I passed the driving test. License in hand, I drove my new European car to the rural high school I attended. My friends thought it was the funniest car they had ever seen. “What is that?” they chuckled. And, “Oooooh…it says BLUE FOX on it!” Ugh. We had not had the mechanic check it out because it was newer and we trusted the neighbors. When it started misfiring, I took it to the shop. The mechanic came up with a full-page list of work the Audi needed. Number one on the list was a broken strut. I did not know what a strut was, but apparently, this car was equipped with very expensive, but fragile McPherson struts. I don’t remember all the details, but the estimate was close to $1,000.  I think Dad coughed up money for the repair bill out of a guilty conscience.

I hung on to the Fox through high school. I found that if I shifted quickly into second gear I could make the tires bark. That had my friends rolling. My friends also loved to see me pull up to the Handy-Pantry to buy a quart of oil every other day. When I would unscrew the oil cap, a billow of smoke would rise out like I had rubbed a genie lamp. No wishes granted. But it did give my friends a new line, “Hey Scott, that is really cool. The Fox has an overhead cam smoker!” More rolling and knee slapping. I endured it though, and they didn’t complain when I drove places so they could drink as much as they wanted.

I took the Blue Fox with me to college high up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It got me and a couple of buddies that had previously laughed at my car up and down those mountains many weekends. The electric cooling fan quit working, so we would watch the engine temperature gauge climb as we made our way up steep grades and then watch it fall with relief as we coasted down the other side of the hills. One of the high beams shot way off to the right side of the road and often helped us spot deer along the roads as we made our way between home and dormitory life.

The following year I moved back home and attended the local University. The Fox threw a rod and that was all she wrote. My Dad sold me his old diesel pick-up truck for a bargain. Thus, began my lifelong pursuit of the perfect car. I think I have been trying to make up for losing out on that deep red Mustang my whole life.  However, I always end up putting practicality over what I really want. So, this week, some 36 years later, I bought a deep red convertible!  It’s not a Mustang, but it looks sporty. But I kept it practical. It has a backseat. Underneath the sporty exterior is a Toyota Camry. Dad has a Camry. 

The car is cool, yet practical. Just like me and my dad.

Pinball and Daydreams

I was ten years old and I had captured the silver ball with my left flipper. 

I held it firmly as I surveyed the surface of the table below the glass. I checked to see if the “special” light was on. It was. I could let the ball roll to just the right point near the middle of the flipper and then tap the button hard hooking it left and down the drain that crossed the trigger for the “special.” It meant sacrificing my last ball to get a new game and five more balls to play. Suspended, I weighed my options. Free game or keep the ball in play, go for the spinners, rack up some points, and go for a new high score.

I was addicted to pinball. I wasn’t a pinball wizard; I was a pinball junkie. The owners of The Game-room were my pushers. I remember the first marked quarters handed out like candy. I felt a rush of adrenaline the first time I drew back the spring-loaded launcher and sent the ball rocketing up ramps, through spinners, and bouncing off light-up bumpers. Ding-ding-ding it danced and then shot like a bullet straight down the middle drain. Now this had my attention.  The next ball in play had my complete focus. Hyper-focus. My eyes were lasers. The machine’s cacophonous sounds and flashing lights were some sort of magic magnet. I was mesmerized. Spellbound. Hooked.

Normally I daydreamed. My mind wandered. But now I was back at the Pinball machine. I was playing the new Captain Fantastic machine; Crowds had gathered as I racked up a new high score. I could hear The Who, “He’s a pinball wizard, there has to be a……LeGette!” The game room dissolved. “LeGette!”’ Mrs. Turner, my 5^th grade teacher was barking my name. “LeGette! Are you daydreaming again?” I was sitting at my desk surrounded by rows of classmates. They were all staring at me. Their eyes signaled,” What is wrong with you?” I wanted to be back at that pinball machine. I wanted to be anywhere but here with my name being barked and a bunch of kids looking at me like I was some sort of alien.

Mrs. Turner confirmed their suspicion, “Now that you have come back to earth, Mr. LeGette, could you please come to the board and solve this problem?” I looked at the blackboard and saw hieroglyphics. Everyone called it math, but it was just a jumble of numbers and meaningless symbols. Mrs. Turner certainly knew I could not solve the problem. It was written in secret code. The room was sweltering as Mrs. Turner stared at me. She wore a tank top shirt that showed off her hairy armpits. The giant fan was blowing hot air in my direction. I was feeling sick to my stomach. I could not move. 

Sheila, a neighbor who talked to me at the bus stop, but never at school, raised her hand. She spoke up, “I can solve it, Mrs. Turner.” Phew. Pressure was off. Sheila went to the board and scrawled  numbers and lines and tapped out dots with the chalk. She finished it off by drawing a circle around her final answer. I had no idea what she had just done, but Mrs. Turner was pleased for a moment before turning to me and scowling, “You should pay attention instead of daydreaming if you want to get anywhere in this world!”

As the teacher returned to droning on about dividing fractions, I gave my undivided attention back to staring out the window and dreaming that I was being hoisted up on the shoulders of my fans who were chanting, “High Score! High Score!” They carried me to the game-room counter where I was handed a large trophy and awarded free games for life.

The fleeting nature of transcendent perception or how I know that life is eternal...

Yesterday I attended the funeral of my father's life-long best friend. His funeral was exactly one year from my own mother's funeral. 

This past Monday we had a small family gathering on the one year anniversary of my mother's passing. We met at the columbarium where my mother and my niece are interred and memorialized. I decided to mark the occasion by sharing an experience and a statement about my beliefs concerning the nature of our existence. My thoughts on this subject are always changing and my mind and heart are open to new perspectives and possibilities. I structured my thoughts for this occasion in theological

terms. I could have easily substituted secular language and used words like psyche or consciousness instead of soul. The infinite instead of God. But all of the possible uses of language fall short when attempting to describe the reality that remains hidden from us. Our brain is encased in bone. We only have five measly senses to make sense of everything. Think about how the tiny slits in our eyes let in just enough light to build our entire vision of the universe right in our own heads. It's one miracle in a host of miracles that give rise to our very existence. Here are the words that I read at the memorial:

God gave us five senses. Five senses that allow us to witness the magic of a sunset, to be moved by the beauty of a single note on a violin as a bow makes its way across a perfectly tuned string, to taste the lingering sweetness of ice cream as it melts on our tongue, to breathe in the smell of Thanksgiving at Mom and Dad’s house, and to feel the embrace of those we love.

And as wondrous as those five senses are, they are woefully inadequate to interpret the nature of life and God.

Our mother connected in a special way with Myers Park Baptist’s covenant which says that we are a people on a journey of faith. These words buoyed our mother when the ocean, called cancer, insisted that she swim in its perilous waves. Her steadfast belief in her journey of faith lead her to moments of calm and tranquility in the midst of the crashing waves of chemo treatment and the rip currents of recurring cancer. In those moments of calm, I like to believe that Mom tapped into a transcendent power that lies within each of us. A power to tap into a sixth sense. A sense that allows us to catch fleeting glimpses of God’s world. God’s world is eternal and brings us comfort in the face of our own mortality.

Ten years ago I stood only a few yards from where we are right now. The family had gathered on the grass, beneath the shade of the large oaks that surround us now. The occasion was Anna’s funeral. I can remember the scene as Dr. Shoemaker calmly talked us through the planned order of the celebration of Anna’s life. The breezes that were blowing around us were unusual. Shifting direction and intensity. The sun was breaking in and out through the boughs of the oaks as the winds parted them here, and then there. I could feel the shifting wind on my skin and I closed my eyes to soak up the feeling of the breezy sensation and I tuned all my attention to that feeling of the air on my skin. It was at that moment that I felt myself tap into that sixth sense of transcendent perception.

For a fleeting moment, time stood still and I was instantly connected to everything. The true nature of God and the universe touched me in a way that I had not expected. The divine embrace I felt gave me an awareness of our connectedness to everything and therefore to God and then swirled off with the breeze. The brief experience was a milestone in my own journey of faith. It marked the moment that doubt about the eternal nature of our soul was erased from my worldview. I was overcome with gratitude to God for allowing this to happen at just the time when I needed it most. All this happened as all of you stood around me. I wondered if you felt it too.

I take comfort in the knowledge that Mom is still with us. And I don’t mean as a memory, although those are sweet to have. And certainly we miss seeing her eyes light up when she talks about the Moravian Love Feast. We miss her lovely singing voice, but even more we miss the voice of insistence and persistence imploring us that being part of a family was the most important of all things. We miss the smell of her smoke alarm style cooking of green beans. But mostly we miss her touch, her embrace, and the warmth of her hugs.

Yet the warmth of her spirit is alive and well and within us all. The true essence of who she is never dies. Her true essence is love. Love permeates all things. Love surrounds us and dwells within us. The loving soul that we call Margaret, Mom, and Nana has never gone anywhere. She would never leave us and she never has. Love never dies.