Food and Cars

Car Show and Milk

Usually I never think about cars or milk

Those who have read my writing for any length of time know that I am not a ‘car person.’ Unlike 99% of all American males I simply do not care about cars. For me, they serve only one purpose and that is transportation. Currently, it has been six years since I’ve owned a car. My feet and legs are so much more affordable.

If a car I own breaks down I will walk away from it before I ever open the hood. I refuse to get car grease on my hands. I once sold a car so that I could buy a camera that was the size of a pack of cigarettes and could fit into my shirt pocket. Twice I have sold my car in order to pay the freaking rent. I just do not form attachments to cars.

(Robert M. Pirsig would be so disappointed in me.)

Well, this morning I was going through my supply of food and I decided I wanted to cook something for dinner tonight that I have not cooked in several years. It slowly turned into a craving. That can happen when looking through one’s kitchen cabinets. I had all the ingredients that I would need except one. I needed half a cup of milk.

I’m not a baby cow so I obviously do not drink cow’s milk. I quit drinking milk when I was fourteen years old. That is when I quit consuming that horrible abomination Americans call, breakfast cereal. Seriously, I very, very rarely ever buy cow milk. The only time it ever happens is when it is called for in a recipe that I really want to make.

As my craving for the chosen recipe began growing exponentially I decided to go buy some milk. Instead of walking almost two miles to the nearest grocery store for just half a cup of milk, I decided to walk to the nearest convenience store just three and a half blocks away. After all, it was just half a freaking cup of milk that I needed.

As I walked through the downtown of the small town I live in I quickly realized that today is the day of the annual, ‘Downtown Car Show,’ that is held every July. All the downtown streets are closed off to traffic and they are lined with vintage cars. Hundreds and thousands of humans walk through the streets looking at the cars, and, if male, drooling over them.

On my way to the freaking convenience store, I paid no attention to the vintage cars whatsoever. As is my tendency, I did however notice the people. I noticed that the crowd was a little smaller than in previous years. And they seemed rather subdued.

I also noticed that only approximately one in forty people were wearing masks. Curiously, this was in the same proportion to the number of Trump loyalists versus others, as indicated by voting results in the last presidential election.

I quickly purged such thoughts from my noggin and proceeded to the freaking convenience store. Carrying home a 16 fluid ounce plastic bottle of milk my thoughts were salivating over the notion of what I was going to prepare for dinner.

But once again going through the car carnival on my way home I spotted a Porsche. That is when I started thinking about my friend…

(Yes, White Feather actually has a few friends.) I’ve known her for around a quarter of a century. We talk on the phone around three times a month. She’s thirteen years older than me which means she’s pushing 80. She used to work as a professional psychic and is now retired and living alone with her two cats. We can talk for hours.

Well, my friend happens to own a vintage Porsche! It has been sitting in her garage untouched for over twenty years. It hasn’t been started or driven in over thirty years. As she moved from state to state over the last thirty years she would put it on a trailer and drag it behind her.

A couple of years ago I asked her why she didn’t sell the damn thing. After all, she could make a small buttload of money from it.

She replied, “That car is a work of art. I just can’t sell it. Furthermore, that car is symbolic.”

Way, way back in the 1970s she was married to a wealthy man. She grew to despise him and decided to divorce him. But first she took some of his money and bought herself a brand new Porsche. That car became symbolic of her escape from male tyranny — or something like that. It was the symbol of when she decided to break away from her conventional life and move toward her own independence. It was the symbol of her taking charge of her own life. It was the biggest bonus she ever gave herself. It was the symbol of when her life forever changed.

When I think about the money she could get from that old vintage car I realize that I could live comfortably on that for three to six years. I would sell it in a heartbeat. But she won’t let it go. She told me that she was going to take it with her to her grave.

Wow.

Not being a ‘car person,’ I find that hard to understand. But knowing her as I do, I can almost, nearly, somewhat, roughly, partially begin to grasp her thinking.

While I cannot fully understand why people collect things, hold on to things, and won’t let them go, I cannot help but realize that I am just a wee bit of a hypocrite.

While I don’t collect things and while I’ve let so very, very much of my ‘things’ go, there is one thing that I’ve owned for decades that I have not been able to let go of.

It’s my Lego collection.

When I was a kid growing up in the Sixties Legos were almost unheard of in America. But my maternal grandfather in Europe sent us kids a box of Legos for Christmas one year. My siblings were not very impressed but I became an instant addict. I could build things for endless hours. My parents had to force me to stop so that I could get some sleep.

Nowadays when you buy a box of Legos there are exactly the number of pieces required to build the picture on the box. How disgustingly unimaginative! All you’re doing is putting a puzzle together.

Back in my day you had hundreds of pieces of Lego blocks and you had to use your imagination to build something out of them. Nowadays imagination is not required. You simply had to use the left-half of your noggin to put a puzzle together. How freaking boring!

One of the addictions I’ve carried with me through my life is building. I love to build stuff. I vehemently refuse to use blueprints. I use my fingers and my imagination. This goes against everything that self-help pundits proclaim. Imagination is dead in our society today. Everything must follow a plan, a formula, a blueprint. And yes, that even goes for writing.

Not me.

I vehemently revolt against any formula or pattern or blueprint that I am expected to follow. I’m a builder, goddam it.

So when I became a daddy and subsequently a full-time stay-at-home mommy I called my mother to ask her if she still had that box of Legos my grandfather sent to us so long ago. She said that she was pretty sure it was somewhere in the attic and that if she could find it she would send it to me.

When it arrived I broke it open with my daughter in hopes that she might have some proclivities for building. To my horror she had none. WHATSOEVER!

There were a few tiny ‘action figures’ that she immediately grabbed. All she wanted to do was play with them. She asked me to build vehicles and homes through which she could play out silly dramas with the action figures.

Legos are for building! Not playing.

I purchased additional pieces for the collection over the years. The building potential increased exponentially. And I had fun building stuff.

But my daughter had absolutely no interest in building stuff.

So the collection got boxed up and it traveled with us from state to state and never got opened again. Unless I felt like building something.

The next thing I know I became a grandpa. When my granddaughters became old enough I had them over and I broke open the box of Legos — plus the new pieces I bought. Once again, to my horror, I found that they had no interest whatsoever in building anything. All they wanted to do was play with the ‘action figures’ to create some silly childish soap opera drama.

Girls.

My whole goal with my stupid Lego collection was to keep building it up until it became some mind-blowing collection of pieces that some progeny of mine could go crazy with to build utterly profound, imaginative things.

Well, my Lego building DNA has sadly not been passed on.

Girls.

So I recently decided that it was time to let it all go. Why was I carrying this big tub of Lego pieces around with me across the country? I kept thinking that even if none of my progeny could appreciate Legos then maybe in my old age I could start playing with them myself again.

Yeah, right. The sad truth is that I am done with them, too. That big old tub of well over a thousand Lego pieces has been sitting in my apartment for years now and I haven’t opened it. I still need to build but I have evolved beyond Legos. It’s time to sell them.

In preparing to put out an ad to sell them, I opened the tub with the intention of counting the pieces. After a brief moment or two I snorted derisively. There was no way I was going to count all those pieces. I decided to go with, “over a thousand pieces.”

So now I’m thinking maybe I can get a hundred bucks for it all. That would pay for a month of internet access fees plus maybe a small bag of groceries. I could keep writing for a month. Most importantly, I would not have to haul that tub with me when I move to where ever I will live out the rest of my days.

Letting go. Lightening the load. Putting things behind me. It’s not a Porsche but it will move me beyond my current baggage. I will be freer and emptier and clearer. Perhaps my building addiction will open me up to untold new possibilities. Just maybe some kid out there will have their imagination opened up. Is it my duty to pay it forward?

I am not what I collect. I am not what I hold on to. I am not my past. I am not what I’ve built but rather what I have yet to build. What am I without my imagination?

Well, I see that it is now well past dinner time. I will just put off that dinner that I had planned until tomorrow. After all, now that I have all the ingredients I’m sure they will all last until then.

I’ll put out the ‘Legos For Sale’ ad on Monday.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved.

Speaking of Legos…