Car Troubles, Part I

When I was a child, cars were rather mysterious to me. My first car memories are from when I was about four years old. I had still not begun school myself, but I remember riding with my mother and siblings in the car every morning to take my two older brothers to school. I was still too short to see out the window, but I remember looking up at the tops of trees flying by at break-neck pace.

I also remember the old Pontiac station wagon we used to have. It had wood trim down the side, and the car was so long it would not fit in the garage. The hood was about six feet long and it was followed by two rows of panel seating and a mammoth trunk with a rear-facing seat. Rather than pile into the front two rows, one or two of the kids often ended up in the trunk (which was open to the rest of the car). My sister and I often sat in the trunk and waved to the occupants of the car behind us, who often smiled and waved back. Unfortunately, similar good nature today is often returned with a lone-fingered salute. Why this is the case, I am unsure. People are just grumpier than they used to be, I guess.

These memories come before I remember the specter of driving dangers ever rearing its ugly head. I was oblivious to the real power of cars until I was a little older, despite my mother’s constant reminders about wearing seat belts and other safety measures (she was very diligent, and still is, when it comes to safety). Then one day we were all headed somewhere in Atlanta for some sort of doctor’s appointment for one of my brothers. I remember the scene vividly:

The family Waldroup was unaware of the calibre of disaster represented by a winter storm in the Atlanta area. The mother, a Clevelander in years past, was wonted to the salted and plowed roads of the North. In fact, the whole family, having recently called the mountains of western Massachusetts home, was in no way surprised by snow or cold. Now leaving their home in Georgia, they never expected the events that were to befall them on this peaceful, though chilly, day.

They piled into their red Caravan and joyfully lilted toward their destination in raucous song, no doubt led by Psalty the Singing Songbook. It had rained earlier in the day, and as they neared their objective, which was off a small two-lane road in Atlanta, the mother Waldroup began to exercise more caution, as she sensed the worry in the fellow drivers on the road, perhaps indicated by the glaring white knuckles of tense grasps on the steering wheel that beamed through the windshield of every passing car.

The Caravan came to the top of a hill and began to descend. Suddenly Mother Waldroup saw it, a patch of black ice right in front of her, just when the hill became steepest. She veered precipitously, causing the Psalty cassette to skip, throwing the whole car into a panic. The car wheels clenched with lack of friction and the once mighty Caravan began gently sliding down the hill without regard to Mother Waldroup’s turning of the wheel. The littlest one began to cry, no doubt because of the lack of Psalty, and young Jonathan Waldroup gasped in realization. As the car turned slowly to the point that he was facing up the hill from whence they came, he knew his life was about to end. He expected the car to burst into flames any second, as the gas tank spontaneously ruptured and then ignited.

(Excerpted from The Chronicles Waldroup, Book XLVII, Chapter IV)

Fortunately, I was fated for at least seventeen more years of life. Through all the crying and the shouting, the car slowly came to rest without a scratch. All the other drivers had paused to watch. But such near-death experiences cannot help but have an impact. And so for many years, my young fears of gas tank ignitions led me to believe that nearly all car wrecks led to instant, apocalyptic explosions, from which car occupants seldom walked alive. I have yet to be in a car wreck (knock on wood) of any significance, so I am not yet convinced that I was wrong. But I did recently have an interesting experience with my car that troubles me to this very moment.

(To be continued…)