Motor vehicles are agents of mass destruction. Instead of the Four Horsemen, they are the Four Treads of the Apocalypse. Imagine I’m throwing salt over my shoulder or spitting in my palms or waving my hands and placing my knuckles to the sides of my brows to ward off the evil eye and keep you safe from harm as far as cars are concerned. Whatever it takes, may you always be safe inside, outside, and in the general vicinity of motor vehicles. That being said, I do know of a few car-related events that had happy endings. Take, for example, my uncle’s Model T Ford. I got to ride in the rumble seat. Yes. I’m that old. What’s a rumble seat, you ask? Instead of lifting a door to get to a trunk at the rear of the car, you pulled down a door and up pops an open air seat just wide enough for two squashed adults or three delirious children. Find an old “Andy Hardy” Mickey Rooney movie; you’re bound to see a rumble seat in one of the scenes. What made this particular Model T so special was that it had been sitting unused in my uncle’s garage for years before we rode in it. The next time he took it for a spin down Echo Park Avenue, the motor fell out. Yep. Whatever was holding it in place had rusted to pieces and the entire motor hit the pavement somewhere south of Donaldson Street. We heard the loud clunk, ran to the window to see what happened, and watched the rest of the Model T sail past our house, dropping bits and pieces along the way, much to my uncle’s embarrassment. What if that had happed during our rumble ride? Talk about timing! Within a few years, my generation started lining Echo Park and environs with our own ancient vehicles. Fred had a Jaguar, a very used X- or J- something or other. He took me for a ride in it soon after he got it, just to show it off. That’s when he decided to tackle Baxter Street. In case you’ve never heard of Baxter Street (and why would you?), it is one of the steepest streets in Los Angeles, with a 33 percent grade. It crosses Echo Park Avenue and frightens drivers to this very day. We sometimes had to walk up it, which was awful, but walking back down was pure terror. Halfway up Baxter, the Jaguar decided it had met its match. It could climb just so far and no farther. What was he to do? The brakes wouldn’t hold if he decided to back down in reverse. If he let off the brakes, we would have been jettisoned across Echo Park Avenue and up the neighboring hill, flying rear end first, assuming we weren’t smashed to smithereens before we got there. He decided the best option was to make a Y turn and head back down the street hood first. However, once he backed into the Y and was perpendicular to the street, the gears got stuck. He couldn’t get it to move. That’s when we sensed the car was about to start rolling over, doing three-sixties roof over floorboard. Tipping, tipping, about to fall and … the gears engaged and we returned to ground zero, this time at five miles an hour. I never rode in that Jaguar again. To this day, I have dreams in which I’m driving a car full of people up a steep hill and we start to fall backwards, roof first. Do you have that dream? That’s a Baxter Street dream. Around college entrance time, Sharon and I each got our own used vehicles. She had a ‘50s Chevy that lacked power steering and brakes. Mine was a 1968 Olds ’88 with power brakes but no power steering. My father said if I could learn to maneuver that car I could drive anything, and he was right. I developed enough upper arm strength to double park the one-ton beast. What I didn’t have was the leg power to stop Sharon’s Chevy going downhill. This I discovered while driving her car down the steepest hill in her Hollywood neighborhood. The only reason we’re alive today is because her front seat was very strong and did not collapse when I shoved my back against it with every ounce of strength I possessed, foot slammed onto the brake pedal. After we screeched to a stop just short of the light, she looked over and said, “Oh! I forget to tell you about the brakes.” That was the last time I drove a car without power brakes yet I still have dreams that I can’t make a car stop. Do you? After the Olds ’88, came my first brand new car, a Dodge Dart. My husband was in Vietnam so I got to drive it all by myself, and one of my first outings was to visit his family in Placentia. Don’t bother looking up where that is. We never need to go there again. Proud of my new toy, I offered to take his younger sister for a spin. It was at night. There were no streetlights. She said “Turn left here,” so I did. I immediately turned left, missed the intersection and drove straight into a rain-soaked cow pasture. As I said, nighttime and no streetlights. So I made a mistake. I’m entitled. My real error was revving the motor so the tires spun themselves into a really deep, really muddy car trap. We sat there staring at each other in the dark, not saying anything, not knowing what to do next. I was just about to force open the door and step into quicksand when two huge, looming lights appeared behind us. I swear, we thought the mother ship had landed and we were about to get sucked up into outer space. The alien turned out to be a trucker who showed up at my window and asked, “Need any help, ladies?” I nodded mutely, rolling down my window. He took one look at us and said, “You stay put. I’ll take care of it.” And that’s what he did. He hooked up chains to my bumper and towed us out of the cow pit. Then he unhooked the chains and waited until we were road-bound again before he headed off into the night. Imagine that. Batman drove a pickup truck. I’m sure that’s what started me on the dreams where I’m driving and can’t stay on the road. Before I know it, I’m steering over rock beds or sandy beaches. Sound familiar? Anyone? One year, my first husband decided I should learn how to drive a stick shift. I was doing moderately poorly, when he decided I should take the wheel and drive him and his younger sister to the store. We were stopped by a traffic light at a railroad crossing, actually sitting on the tracks, when the wigwags began clanging, the guardrails started coming down, and the approaching train began blowing its warning whistles. I don’t have to tell you the rest, do I? No, I couldn’t get the gears shifted into first; yes, everyone was screaming at me; no, the train didn’t squash us. A guardian angel temporarily took my place, got the gears aligned, and drove the car off the tracks in the nick of time. Suffice it to say, I refuse to drive a stick shift to this day, yet I still have dreams that I can’t manage one. Am I the only one out there with that dream? Really? Then there was the time I drove a 17-foot U-Haul. The company I worked for needed to transport tons of product to a show in Sacramento. I was in charge of setting it up, so I decided to drive the rental. After all, I’d driven an Olds ’88. How hard could a 6-wheeler be? Game to the bone, that’s what I was, even though I’d never climbed into a vehicle that tall before, let alone drive one. It wasn’t a stick shift; I’d made sure of that. But it did have a nail in the outer left rear tire. I noticed it when we were loading, but I figured there were at least five other tires so we’d be fine. Riding with me was one very annoyed employee who didn’t want to go to the show, didn’t want to drive to Sacramento, and definitely didn’t want to be in any truck with me. When we stopped for gas just short of our destination, he got out and noticed I was examining the wounded tire. “What are you looking at?”
“I’m trying to find the nail in the tire.”
“What nail in the tire?”
“The one I noticed before we started out.”
“Well, that explains why you kept looking downward in the left side mirror. How about I drive the rest of the way?”
For some reason, he never let me get behind the wheel of that truck again, which was okay with me. I was ready for a nap. I can honestly say I’ve never had a dream about driving a car while there was a nail in a tire. You’re going to tell me you have that one all the time, aren’t you? How about the one where you’re driving a very heavy truck and fighting centrifugal force with all your might to stay in your lane while rounding a sharp curve? Any takers? Ah well, the years have come and gone; so have the vehicles and the dreams they inspired (except for driving off the road and getting lost). Now I lease my cars and turn them in brand new because I only drive around the corner. Before I end, let me tell you one more story. It’s about my father. He drove Cadillacs. Even when he was broke and had to drive battered, used models they still sported eighty pounds of chrome, mostly in the front bumpers. It was during one of these old car times when he decided to drive my mother and me downtown to see a movie. It was on a Sunday afternoon and the streets were deserted. No traffic, no pedestrians, not a single car in the parking lot he chose. Nonetheless, he stopped at the driveway and made us get out. Then we stood on the sidewalk and watched my very sober father pull into the lot, make a very wide left turn into a parking space, and drive straight into the brick wall. The whole lot was his domain and he still smacked into the wall. Backing up a tad, he got out and we all proceeded to the theater. No one mentioned the latest dent in the bumper. See, sometimes the apple falls right underneath the tree.