Sunday, December 11, 2016

ON BAGATELLES

I just commented on Daily Timewaster and it stirred memories left behind. Mostly when one leaves them behind, one has consigned them to the deep and doesn't really want to return and stir them up. It brought to mind that I'm driving a 16 year old VW that 'she' bought. I traded my 328i in for a new SUV since we had become a family of 3. It wasn't a year or two later that she took the new car and my 4 year old daughter and departed to the rich pastures of Texas. In Texas she went through 3 or 5 cars, more in Portland and God knows what damage she's done in Washington.

That VW that she bought across the street from SFO, and I was there when she signed the contract, she left with me. I doubt either of you have read Trevanian. He seems to have been a feature of long ago but I read his book Shibumi and remembered how the protaganist always kicked his volvo when he got out and if he forgot would stoop and pick up a rock and throw it the car. This is how I feel about the VW.

My father drives a 31 year old red Honda that he cherishes. The sultry and beautiful pirate I know and cherish thinks maybe I should buy a truck but I hold off. Not so much because trucks are designed by Detroit to rust away quickly in the Spring but because I'm cheap and as long as that stupid VW works, I'll keep driving it.

Forget all your fancy hotrods, when I push down the accelerator, even a tiny bit, that stupid car passes through the sound barrier. That Beemer on its best day never did that.

2 comments:

Brig said...

oh my gosh, this tale brings memories of my 20yr ol Ford Explorer, I bought her used for cash. Drove her every where, you could not hurt that thing. Got to were the a/c didn't work, and the windows had a tendency to either stay up or fall all the way down, sure miss that ol girl. You could take her to the bay area and those crappy beamer drivers got out of the way when you got up to ramming speed...

HMS Defiant said...

Ah, well, that's the other little thing. I cannot write it down here but it will be in my next post. .... No it won't. I was cheng at the near end of life of those little ships at the top of my blog and you absoutley never, ever said complimentary things about them. Not one single peep. All 4 engines turning and burning, all generators up and running, the sweep systems functional and when the CO asked, as they do, "how is going cheng?" your answer, forced on you by God and cats was, "sir, do you smell smoke?, is something on fire? have we really run through all 600 gallons of lube oil?" You know,
when we met I owned the 328 AND a 1976 VW Bus. Talk about conflicted...