The Flint Hills Writing Project (@FHWP) at Emporia State University (Go Hornets! #StingersUp) started a Writing Into the Day/Writing Out of the Day writing prompt series during this period of social distancing. This is a great idea from a great group of writers and writing enthusiasts. I’m going to try and keep up as I can and post my efforts.
Writing Out of the Day – 3/25/20 prompt is to recount the history of a vehicle you once owned.
I bought my first car from my grandpa. He knew I needed affordable transportation to get back and forth from Emporia State to Kansas City. He offered to sell me the car for one dollar. At the time of that conversation, I only had 75 cents on me. He took the deal. I had my first car.
It was a 1977 Pontiac Grand Prix. It was yellow. It was awesome. It was coined the “Banana Wagon” not long after I took ownership.
Grandpa was a Pontiac man. He had just bought a brand new Pontiac, something he said Grandma could drive better. We weren’t quite completely aware at the time but Grandpa was dying. He really liked his yellow Grand Prix but knew Grandma would need something more suited to her so he bought the new boxy Pontiac sedan. It was brown. It had no character. I think he sold me the car not only to help me out but to have the opportunity to see it and maybe get a chance to ride in it again.
I was Grandpa’s bodyguard. That’s what he always called me. When they were in town or when we went somewhere as a family, I drove him around in the Grand Prix. The bodyguard. It was a role I was born to. Driving around with Grandpa and spending time with him listening to stories and opinions and politics. The role of a grandson. The bodyguard. The one he motions to come closer in his hospital bed dying and then makes a fist and whispers in stroke-induced, garbled speech to punch the nurse who wouldn’t leave him alone. That’s my grandpa.
The Banana Wagon. It would simply glide down the road. Barebones. Grandpa never met a dollar he didn’t like. Some may call him cheap but I call it squeezing the life out of every penny. To him, the only “extra” a car needed was an air conditioner. The Banana had AM radio, no cruise control, and manual windows but it was magnificent. I miss driving the winding roads around the Stockdale Park area at Tuttle Creek Lake when I first started working at K-State in 1988 and lived in Grandpa and Grandma’s old house.
There are cars that are more than cars. There are cars with more miles of memories than mileage. The yellow 1977 Grand Prix was more than a car. I wish to this day I’d had the money and the resources to keep it around after the engine died. I miss that car. It was a lifeline to my grandpa for five years after his death. Running or not, it would be nice to sit in it again. It would be nice to channel Grandpa’s opinion on matters or talk about his great-grandkids and great-great grandkids. He would have like that.
The Banana Wagon will live in my memory forever. You never forget your first car. But man, how about the dreams that endure along with the memories.
One more chance to “run the line” and buy Grandpa his cheaper booze in Missouri.
One more chance to ride pedal to the floor down the Big Dipper.
One more chance to be The Bodyguard.
One more chance to be a grandson.
