Father's Car

Although it's hardly a unique story in the gay community, my father and I weren't friends.  Shortly after I turned 22, he and I stopped communicating.  In retrospect, I think it worked out for the best for us both.  But here, the day after Fathers Day, I'm recalling the car he drove for more years than I care to remember.











(Not quite the faded green, way too shiny, and missing the andiron bumpers but close)

My father purchased new a 1953 Ford 2 door 'Customline' coupe, his first car.  A nondescript dark green, the paint faded almost immediately due, he insisted, to an experiment by Ford gone bad.  It was a serious no-nonsense vehicle, little flare, no clever optional equipment that would have made it collectible.  It was before the era of the huge fender 'fins' of the 50's although the tail lights resembled two gunsights I always thought.  The car fit my father somehow.  If we needed to go somewhere, it was in that Ford.  Snow, rain, cold, Long Island summer heat, the steel lump that powered the beast rumbled its way along the miles, my father at the wheel, his face calm but stern as he maneuvered through traffic.

My memory of the car is rusty because the Ford in later years seemed more rust than metal.  My father's practical streak extended to making the car "safer" by adding gigantic chrome bumpers, front and rear that looked as if they'd been stolen from a mansion's fireplace.  I think he was proud of those andiron monstrosities because they spoke of his infallible logic (at least in his mind).  And like the rest of the car, they rusted, gaping holes in the corners.  My father ignored them.  The car ran and that was good enough for him.

His stubborn insistence that the Ford would survive for all eternity knew few bounds.  When the body of the car began to settle, the passenger's side door developed the habit of flying open unexpectedly.  My father's solution - wrap a thick mesh dog collar around the door pillar and it's rear companion holding the door shut under all circumstances.  However, it also meant that when the family traveled, we entered and exited like circus clowns, all from the single functioning door on the driver's side.  It also meant that the front and rear windows needed to be rolled down sightly to make room for the collar.  When it rained, those unfortunates on the passenger's side got wet.  In winter, the cold air would blow around the interior, fighting the heater's attempt to keep us all warm.  But the Ford started and ran.  My father was satisfied.

And so the years slid past the Ford's flanks.  A little more rust accumulated each year.  The abundant chrome accents of the era slowly lost their gleam.  But it ran on and on.  When we moved to a slightly more upscale community, the Ford came along, looking out of place next to driveways filled with gleaming late model glamor land yachts.  Finally, as much with people as with mechanical devices, the Ford would unexpectedly stop running from time to time.  After a particularly frightening cut-out on the Long Island Expressway, my mother finally insisted that Ford needed to go.  When the new car arrived and the Ford was driven away for the last time, I think my father felt the loss more than the rest of us.  His faithful friend was gone.

Yesterday afternoon I mused how much that Ford and my father were similar.  Nondescript, no nonsense, practical to a fault, never sacrificing functionality for flare, fading slowly into the background, yet rumbling through life while staying between the lines of society.  His few quirks tightly strapped shut to keep us inside.  I don't miss my father, but the memories remain sharp. If a little rusted.