In the early dark of December, I recall walking down to St. David’s in Cullowhee. I was a college student, a junior I think, and it was Advent. My friend Brittany had been invited to read a meditation she’d composed, and we were both going.
These meditations were a weekly occurrence at St. David’s. We arrived in the cold, entering into the nave directly from the red door at the side. Inside was a narrow room with a vaulted ceiling. The Advent evening prayer services were candlelit; there was a podium in the aisle for reading. A chest organ at the back provided some music. Dr. Lillian Pearson–Kelly’s piano professor–usually supplied.
I cannot remember the subject of Brittany’s meditation. I can only guess it was something literary. (We were English majors.) But the reason I was there in the first place had more to do with the rector who led the parish.
I have been reading The Autopian since it was founded. Really, I’ve been reading David Tracy for years, and he and his fellow wrenching enthusiasts have been sort of the gateway for me into caring for cars that Tony Bourdain was when it came to travel–a sort of acknowledgement that it’s a fine thing to do, wrenching, that normal, non-mechanical people can do it, that cars are machines, and every machine breaks now and again, and even if you can’t solve it, it’ll be okay.
Anyway, David Tracy put out an article this week about all of the cars he’s bought and sold, and it made me wonder if I could compile a list of the cars I’ve owned (including the ones Kelly and I have owned together). And here is just as good of a place as any to catalog them.
1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon. My first car, inherited from my stepmother, Mary. When I earned my driver’s license in 1997, the car was 18 years old, but to my teenaged self, it felt 118. It was, admittedly, a car from another era. Its small block V8 ought to have provided tremendous power, but because it came from a time of fuel efficiency, it barely coughed up more than 115 horsepower. Mine was gold with a beige fiberglass top. Actually, gold is an exaggeration. The car I drove was dull brown. It consumed oil as greedily as it did fuel, which I thankfully could purchase for $0.95/gallon in those days. When I worked and saved and had enough money for a replacement when I graduated high school, we put the Olds in the front yard with a “for sale” sign in the windshield and a price of $800. A couple came by to test drive it and stole it. Later, we found it in a pay-by-the-week motel in Statesville. Mary felt so bad for the couple (who had apparently lived in the Oldsmobile for a while with their kid) that she just let them have it.
An extraordinary day, and a simple act of decency.
We are standing in a dark room where photography of any kind is prohibited. Before us, in a light and climate controlled room, is the original garrison flag raised over Fort McHenry in September of 1814 following a long night of British bombardment. In the early morning light, the sight of the flag inspired Francis Scott Key to compose words that eventually became The Star Spangled Banner.
Thomas and I are standing, a bit speechless, looking at its faded colors, its clearly hand-sewn composition, its tattered edges. In the years after the War of 1812, the flag was owned by a family, who scissored off snippets of fabric to give to war heroes and friends. It was eventually given to the Smithsonian in 1907, where we are viewing it. And of course, now we all sing about the flag. This flag. I think about how singing a song with others brings us together.
Minutes later, I pause to take a seat on a wooden bench while Thomas checks out another gallery of our nation’s artifacts. I’m nursing a fractured foot, and our day started early this morning as we hiked around the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the U.S. Capitol Building. The day before we’d hoofed it more than 10 miles. My orthopedic boot was not the most comfortable footwear. As I sat, I glanced at my phone and saw I had a LinkedIn message, and for whatever reason I opened it, read it, and came to a startling conclusion.
