Hot Rod Lincoln

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Cars these days are so pedestrian. Every SUV is silver. The little interchangeable boxy gas-saving cars are always energy efficient colors like white. Cars have no fins, finish, or flair. There’s no reason to wax a car anymore. If it shines, no one will care. It’s a sign of the times and it’s tragic. Fabulous cars are a thing of the past.

But not in my driveway. This is what’s in my driveway.

A 2005 50th Anniversary Edition Ford Thunderbird convertible with a winter hard-top.

I love my car. If I could string it with some beads and wear it around my neck, I would. Waxing it in the summer is sublime. I keep asking my husband for new hubcaps for Christmas, maybe some spinners, but he ignores me and buys me jewelry. Even he doesn’t get it – how much I love my car.

That’s gone for most people. The deep love for an automobile, the joy of having a stranger walk up, as one did this morning, and say, “That’s one hot pair of wheels.” The immersion in impracticality and the gorgeous feeling of indulging in this one fine, lovely, sleek, blue thing.

In the summertime when the top is down and I fire up the freeway ramp past the energy-saving slugs and feel the engine kicking in, when I sail through the interchange rolling through the lifts and the curves, when I decide to sandwich between two semi-trucks and step on it before one of them changes lanes, it’s thrilling.

It’s a thrill ride. Not many people still go on thrill rides. I do. Every day.

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“My Pappy said, “Son, you’re going to drive me to drinkin’ if you don’t stop drivin’ that hot rod Lincoln.” Charlie Ryan