(This was an old-school hand-me-down ride. Dad got it as his “company car” on a lease as the Kelvinator Appliance Division of American Motors where he worked was spun off to White Consolidated Industries to work more efficiently. Finally freed from driving Ramblers, Dad enjoyed it. In the old days, he would keep a new car for a model year and then turn it in at the Company garage when the next new year came around. That didn’t work in the new company, so they asked him to keep it two years before returning it to the GM dealer. This ride was fairly plush- a 1973 Chevrolet Caprice Classic, 350 engine, power everything. Dad was a little surprised that he was offered the opportunity to purchase the car at the end of the two-year lease, something unknown in the car business back then. He asked his kids if they had a need for a pretty cool car. I raised my hand, and drove the hell out of it until I left to join the Navy. I put Dad’s SSCA (Sports Car Club of America) device on the grill to demonstrate my commitment to an older memory then. Nice ride).
You know where we have been lately. In the search for moments captured in old technology, I have been surrounded by (at this moment) two memory devices, one of them silver-colored and ancient and the other deep rich black, slimmer and modern. They festoon both sides of a newer laptop computer, Mac operating system, a legacy choice made quite awhile ago as a protest against Mr. Bill Gates and his monolithic digital madness. The march of new machines is remarkable, and changes us as well.
The point of this exercise in replaced devices was to try to find some pictures of my sister, who just passed from this world into whatever is next. The search for the images of her life was filled with amazement. One of the files of digital debris included a nearly forgotten account of her successful eviction of the parents from their nice home overlooking the rich blue water of Little Traverse Bay.
Big moments? You bet. She took Mom’s car keys and got them into a place officially named “Independence Village,” a nice modern senior care center not far from their home. Since it was actually the opposite of “Independence,” we began calling it “Potemkin village,” and decided we preferred it for accuracy. Reading the old words brought back the memories of dealing with the disturbing conditions of aging in others, shadowed now with some of the realization that it is happening to us, too.
That was pretty nuts, since at each occasional phrase evoking a memorable event, muscle memory said “remember to send that to Annook.” It would take a second to realize that was quite impossible, since she no longer existed in the same experiential plane, and then simply turning the head a bit to return to reading about her alive and in decisive action. It was as disorienting as thinking about walking out of the house, piling into the Caprice and taking thirty hours to drive to Park City, Utah, from Detroit.
Anyway, it is now getting on to fifty years later. It is Sunday and the Writer’s Section at Refuge Farm is starting to stir. We are now devoted to the idea of a quiet morning under unexpected blue skies with the first chill breeze reminding us of the coming seasonal metamorphosis.
We deal with that pretty well every year, and in fact, even accommodate a few changes within each trip around the sun. But another image was in the jumble that surrounded the picture of the Caprice Classic. It was from 1975, we think. Times being what they are, distant memory only goes back to the Carter Administration. Those memories include matters of minor discussion, since things like ‘Stagflation’ are returning. If you don’t remember those, you are about to get the chance to live them.
Back then, we were happy to get home loans at only 12% interest. Do you recall a time when gas station signs only needed space for two digits?
Stand by. We ain’t seen nothing yet.
Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
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