Uncle Ray's Oldsmobile

As a child of the sixties I was as caught up in the world of muscle cars, dragsters, and customized cars as anyone else, though I was neither mechanically adept nor able to afford to indulge my automotive fantasies. In high school I could drool at the ’57 and ’58 Chevys or the chopped and channeled classics from the Forties that I saw on the streets, but I drove my parents’ family Bel Aire.

Before I reached that age of auto awareness, as a boy and a tween, cars weren’t large on my horizon. Give me a good horse anytime. The exception to that was Uncle Ray’s Oldsmobile.

It must have been late in the fall of 1958, when the 1959 models were introduced. I remember my uncle’s farmyard was a sloppy, muddy mess just beyond the lawn and driveway, and that the day will chilly even though the sun was shining. At was a family get-together of some kind; I don’t recall the specific occasion, but since it was in the afternoon it was probably a Sunday.

Everyone was there – aunts, uncles, cousins – except favorite uncle Ray and his family. Most everyone had a plate of food in their laps, the men in the kitchen where they could also have a shot of something strong and the women in the living room. Cousins were where ever we could find a spot.

Suddenly Uncle Ray, Aunt Norma and our cousins, Laurette and Brenda, came through the kitchen door from the porch, all smiles and how-are-you and sorry-we’re-late. They took off their coats and Ray got hugs from each of his numerous sisters. Plates were filled and they joined the party.

A bit later Ray asked for everyone’s attention, saying he had something to show them – outside. Uncles trooped along behind Ray, aunts followed and cousins tore out the front door and around the house to get there first. And then we saw it.

Gleaming from huge chrome bumper to huge chrome bumper was a brand-new 1959 Oldsmobile two-door hardtop. It was brilliant white, with a light purple (maybe lavender or lilac) band that began narrowly at the front fender and raced all the way to the taillights, becoming a little wider at the rear.

The interior was soft white leather with purple accents – carpeting, dash, door inserts, etc., etc. I remember thinking it was the most beautiful car I’d ever seen. Maybe the most beautiful there ever could be. And it had an engine that roared like a dragster when Ray got in a fired it up for the uncles. I remember him beaming behind the wheel.

The Olds was the first new car of his life. I have no idea whether he stretched his pocketbook inside out to buy it. Whatever the case, he was proud of that car. So were my aunt and cousins. There were rides around the mile-square block for all who wanted one. What an experience.

Later in the afternoon, after the scotch in the kitchen had dulled some sensitivities, I remember a couple of my older uncles – men who were more established than Ray in their life’s work – began to question whether he could afford the car. What was he thinking, a car like that. It’s all flash; no one needs a car like that.
Young as I was, I could see the effect those comments had on Uncle Ray. They had deflated him pretty effectively. Usually the life of any family party, he took his own family home early that day. And young as I was, I learned a lesson from that experience.

The world is full of wonderful things I’ve never had and will never have – luxury cars, a beach house, travel and so on. But much as I might like them, I’ve never begrudged anyone else those things. I’ll never own the most beautiful car in the world, but Uncle Ray did. Good for him. And if you get one someday, good for you.

The lab tech with the shaky hand

I spent the better part of this morning in the VA hospital. I've been there pretty much once a month since the transplant almost ten years ago. Mostly it's just a blood draw so the renal docs can keep an eye on the now-older kidney.

This isn't the first time I've commented on the people I see at that institution. There are a few more younger faces than in the past, now that a sizable number of vets of Iraq and Afghanistan are swelling the ranks. But it's still primarily men and a few women about my age up to the very old who served in WWII and Korea.

But the vet who caught my attention today wasn't a patient. He was the lab tech who drew my blood. He was a big kid, with dark hair and a bushy wrap-around beard. Instead of sticking the usual needle into my arm, he inserted something that looked like an IV hookup. When I asked him why he told me that he had a tremor in his right hand and the whatever-it's-called needle thing allowed the part in my arm to remain still while he shakily collected blood into three successive vials. It worked well.

It seems that he's had the tremor ever since he broke his back while deployed to Iraq. When I asked how that came about, thinking perhaps a fall was the cause, he hesitated for a moment. Then he explained that he and three other soldiers had been disarming an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). All the wires had been cut, but they had missed a pressure trigger on the bottom of the device. It exploded as they attempted to move it.

Two of his buddies were killed on the spot. A third had his leg blown off. My guy "only" broke his back as he was thrown into the air and landed on it. He considers himself lucky. I guess that's one way of looking at it.

With apologies to the horse

I once made the mistake of talking with a friend about the horse I owned as a teenager. Marengo was a big Palomino gelding (he'd been "fixed" as a young horse) with the light golden coat and white mane and tail typical of the breed. He also had a white blaze on his face, which is not typical.

Now I said talking about him was a mistake. That's because in addition to relating all of the good times the horse and I spent together, for much of that time he and his companion, a little roan mare my brother rode, didn't have an actual shelter. They lived happily in the pasture like most of the neighboring horseflesh - and cattle - and sheep. My friend won't let me live that down, insisting that fresh-air animal husbandry is some kind of crime against nature.

I've tried to explain that wild mustangs don't have cozy barns in the high desert winters. Nor do range cattle. Even down in rural civilization it's common to see one or more horses standing in a fenced pasture corner with their backs to the wind and whatever moisture it blows in. They never build a campfire or wrap up in horse blankets (horse blankets are reserved for expensive mounts that are kept inside and don't need blankets). They just stand there and take it. It's part of the livestock code, equine division.

And it wasn't always that way anyway. Marengo and the roan had a comfortable three-sided shed covered with several feet of packed straw that was weatherproof, surrounded by a large corral and an attached barn. They couldn't go in the barn, but we kept the tack there. So life was good in horseland.

Then the neighbor (his name was Bud) across the fence, small wooded pasture and potato patch decided to burn weeds one fine spring day when the wind was blowing at about 30 mph, gusting to hurricane force. Within a couple of hours our barn and straw-roofed shed were a pile of embers. Bud was appropriately apologetic. My father, who never punched anyone in his life, came very close to punching him. But that wouldn't rebuild the barn and the shed. They were not insured, so nothing else would rebuild them either. And that's how Marengo and the mare became homeless, er, shelterless.

Somehow they managed, like all of their horsey brethren across the globe and the span of history. But my friend is convinced that someday, when we all go to that great ranch in the sky the Palomino will be there to condemn me to a special part of the ranch where the temperature is very high.

I don't believe that. I think he'll be there, because God loves horses, too, but he'll understand that he was, after all, a horse. He'll recognize that his role as a horse was to be ridden sometimes, fed regularly, brushed and curried and laze around the pasture. In return for such great treatment, he would stand with his back to the wind in the corner every winter.

Finally, he did in fact die of old age. He didn't freeze to death in the depths of an Idaho winter. He was a good horse. We were friends - sometimes he was my best friend. So I'm not worried about meeting him in the hereafter. But I suppose I owe him an apology nevertheless. I probably could have thrown up a canvas lean-to of some kind for the worst of the weather. Sorry, Marengo.

NOTE to children: please put a few oats in my casket with me - no sense taking chances.