I Hate Cars

September 2, 2017

It has come to my attention that many a man returns fondly later in life to the things he hated in his youth. My grandfather was an avid gardener, and in his teen-aged years my father was forced to endure many a weeding expedition. He swore he would never be like his father, gardening, tending to roses. A lawn was quite enough to take care of. It was better with many shade trees so the lawn wouldn’t grow as fast. Of course, I heard all of this while I was weeding said lawn, but I was assured that my task was nowhere near as arduous as his had been. Late in my teens, Dad (supervised as I) planted some chrysanthemums beside the house. He still insisted that he would never plant roses. I grew up, got a college degree, got a job, and moved away. Dad retired down to rural Missouri, where he could experience the small-town atmosphere he had grown up in. Within a few years, we were talking on the phone when he told me what he had been doing that week. He had been planting roses, of course.

That job I had gotten was for a computer company, and for awhile my boss’ boss was a character originally from West by-God Virginia. He had grown up poor in a hard-scrabble existence. Back then, nobody would take charity if they could help it. They just grew their own food as best they could up in the thin and poor soil of the mountains. They grew and ate a lot of beans and corn. He hated that growing up. He swore he would get a job where he could afford to just buy food from a store, where he didn’t have to raise crops, and he would never do it again. Well he got a good job, became a manager with decent pay, and bought a house. Before long, he was looking out at his back yard thinking, “I could grow some corn in that corner yonder.” After a few more years, he was buying a new house with a bigger yard so he could have a larger garden.

In both cases, the things these men hated in their youth became what they treasured as they got older.

Not me, though. I have never come close to being infected by the thing that bored me most in my youth. You see, my father was a caraholic. He loved to go to car lots and look at the new cars. When he bought a new car, which was probably a bit more frequently than he could afford, the next day he would be stopping by the other dealerships to see what they had. This would not have bothered me, except for the number of times I was dragged along on these expeditions. Say that he took us out for pizza or maybe for ice cream after dinner. After whatever treat we were getting, on the way home, we would end up in car lots. These stops seemed interminable. He would carefully look at anything that he might not have seen on the lot before. I remember listening to Mac Davis’ song, “It’s Hard to be Humble,” while sitting in the car in a car lot while my dad looked at the offerings on display. Occasionally, he would make the excuse that as a policeman, he had to keep up with all the makes and models so he could easily identify them in an emergency situation. We knew the truth, though. Dad just loved cars and wanted all of them. If he could have had a new one to drive every day, he would have done that.

At a fairly young age, I came to the conclusion that a car was just transportation. That was all it would ever be for me. That doesn’t mean that I go out of my way to find ugly cars. I happen to think that the four cars I have bought in my lifetime have been fairly good-looking, for the class they were in. All were sub-compacts. I could have afforded larger and more luxurious vehicles at times, but what is the point? My only use for a car is as transportation. My first only lasted three years before it was murdered on the road by a woman who was digging in her purse while driving. I stopped for a red light signaling a bridge was going up. She didn’t see me or the bridge until it was too late for my car. The second one lasted past the car payments. The third I kept for about thirteen years. The fourth I bought used from my brother. Always a mistake, in my brother’s case, but it was only a mild one this time. I had to replace the clutch, which my brother didn’t even know was burned out. (Never let him drive your manual transmission car. He has owned at least three, and has no idea how to tell if a clutch is smoked.) I bought it for about $1,400 ten years ago, and it still serves me well. A few repairs? Sure, but only about $4,000 in total over ten years. It’s a good car. By model year, it’s now 24 years old. Next year, it’s officially a classic car. I’ve never owned a classic car before. I will not care if I still own it when it’s an antique. I have no desire to go car shopping. Ever. This trend does not seem to be reversing itself, and I am far older than my father or that boss of mine were when they started reversing their hates into loves.

Whoa! Whoa! That bridge is going up!

So, you want to talk about cars? Have fun. I’d rather talk about just about anything else. Differential equations? Sure, better subject than cars. The armor used by cuirassiers through the ages? Why not? Military formations and how Napoleon improved them? I’ll bite. Varieties of roses and the climate zones where each does best? I’ll give the subject a listen. Chariotry and how it led to tanks? Eh, too close to cars for me. Seeya, Tank Boy. I’ll go talk with the ladies about something less boring, like make-up or television shows or how that girl said such-and-such to so-and-so and her word choice just seemed so catty. Or maybe I’ll go read a book. But not a book about cars.

How about you? What horribly boring activities are the memories of your youth engraved with? Have you later come to appreciate whatever you hated then?

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