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Good intentions
lead where they may, but it can be awfully hard to steer them to old friends.
My niece once
observed that 80 percent of our phone calls are for Girl-Child, 19 percent for
my wife, with the scraps to Boy-Child and myself. It didn’t take her long to
notice that the few calls I did get were for business.
“Don’t you get
any social calls?” she asked. “How sad.”
For the record
I do receive social calls, but you’d have to stick around longer than a day or
so to catch one. There are two reasons for this: One, I’m male, and two, I
don’t make many calls myself. To understand reason two, please refer to reason
one.
To be honest
there’s a third obstacle to casual friendship, one most folks struggle with:
I’m busy. There is a career to fret, bills to pay, kids to raise, a marriage to
look after, and a million other things, all worthy, all working to blot out
everything but the here and now. The days are consumed with the present.
In the rare quiet moments, though, one can reflect. There’s been an old friend
on my mind lately, one I’ve known for over 20 years. Perhaps the warming
weather tickles the memory, recalling good times shared, or maybe it’s the more
mundane prospect of spring cleaning and yard work. It wasn’t just fun and games
with us; our connection spanned all of life’s experience, routine and sublime,
good and bad alike.
How was my
friend, I wondered? Surely she’d remember me, but could things be the same? I
didn’t think my wife would mind much; she’s pretty open-minded about these
things. She’d even subtly encouraged it. But after years of neglect, would my
love still feel the old fire?
And could she
forgive me for keeping her in the garage all these years?
It’s just an
old pickup to most eyes, a faded blue 1978 Toyota. A “T-ota,” as my
father-in-law used to call them. We bought it in January 1979, two weeks after
the birth of the niece now so troubled by my social life. It was used, briefly
owned by someone who decided they’d rather have a full-size recreational
vehicle. My employer also owned an RV lot so I got it at trade-in value, the
only way we could afford a truck so new.
It was
beautiful, though you have to look pretty hard to tell now. Once metallic blue,
it has turned a kind of splotchy, oxide gray, the automotive equivalent of liver
spots. I parted with the custom wheels years ago after giving up on the notion
that I could wish them into balance. The seat covers would match the
sun-splintered dash if I hadn’t replaced them with a faux-wool pelt that
functions primarily as a retirement home for dust.
The caked grime
sprayed off easily enough, the tune-up wasn’t too costly, and the alternator I
had thought bad was guilty only of failing to pump life into a seriously dead
battery. I’ve let the oil get a little low, about two quarts. Well, maybe
three. OK it was a lot low, but oil is cheap.
There is still
the matter of the custom split chrome bumper, half of which was knocked off so
long ago that I forget how. The remaining piece sports an “Anderson for
President” sticker that is only a couple of years younger than the paint job –
and in much better shape.
My wife looks
at it and sees much-needed trips to the dump, but I see our college years. I
imagine the camping trips BC (before children) where we’d pack little more than
sleeping bags and a foam pad for the truck bed. I picture my first job out of
school, and the day I finally I had to park it in favor of transportation more
compatible with my employment. I see a life locked less in time and place.
And I see my old friend around for years to come. I know it’s a little large as
keepsakes go, but that’s all right. It has a lot of memories to carry.
© 1997 – 2002 Brent Morrison
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