Mustangs

Call it adventurous. ("Adventurous" sounds better than "crazy!") But what does it matter that it is a chilly December day and most "normal" people would not ride around town in a convertible? You only live once, right?

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To my way of thinking, it's not every day Dad drives up in his "new" '04 Mustang. Is it middle age crisis that motivated him to buy a sports car? At age 73, he jokes and says it must be old age crisis! In reality, there is no crisis at all. Dad had always wanted a sports car, so why not? He's not wealthy but he rarely buys anything for himself. So I thought it was cool that he bought himself a car he has wanted for a long time. And I was happy to give him a brief break from driving it!

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Dad's not the only one in the family to make a sporty car purchase. My brother James divulged his desire this year too with a brand new Mustang Cobra (pictured above, right). For all you car buffs, you'd have to consult him for the specs! I'm doing good to remember the make and model. All I know is that he got himself a toy.

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When I was a kid, a popular topic of coversation between the men at our house was cars. Cars, cars, cars. I developed the ability to be there but not be there, if you know what I mean.

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When I was in high school, Dad wanted me to take Auto Mechanics. Yeah, me, the bookworm, er, grease monkey. You should have seen the looks on the other kids' faces when I walked into that class on the first day of school. "What's she doing here?" There were three or four other girls in the class, but definitely not ones I knew from the Speech Club or French class.

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When it came time to disassemble, then reassemble carburetors, the guys on my team hurriedly took ours apart, stood back, and said, "Sylvia, you can put it together." Very funny. Do you know how many parts there are in a carburetor? At least 63! The interesting thing is that I got pretty good at putting brakes on...and I actually enjoyed it too, except when I was nervous about the possiblilty of that spring-thing popping me in the forehead.

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Fortunately, I aced the class (which is better than I can say for Algebra) since grades were based on book assignments and participation. Dad's idea was that I might decide to not get married; then, I would need to know how to fix my own car. The rest of the story? I got married.