Buy a Ford!
Damn if I know how or why this reverie came back to me:
I had traversed the continent in my Porsche 914. The beast quit on me on a back road outside of Boulder, Colorado (years later I learned that the engine bay harbored an ugly secret: the fuel pump was mounted waaaay too close to the heat exchanger...drive long enough and hard enough and the pump vaporizes the gasoline before it ever finds its way to a spark plug). No matter.
I stood there on the side of road. Overheated, catatonic machine on the one hand. Tired, haggard, malnourished, long-haired, sun-burned pilgrim on the other. Given these two empty hands o' mine, I simply stood there blinking.
Then a pickup cruised by.
No. It did not stop. The passenger side window sashayed down. An arm extended out. The middle finger pointed straight up to the sky.
"Buy a Ford" sneered a disembodied voice.
I couldn't help myself. I laughed. I surely did. Doubled over in guffaws, in fact. Can't explain why, but I found it all incredibly funny. Ah, yes. Some answers come quick and easy, don't they?
I never did buy that Ford. Truth be told, I drove my Porsche from sea to sea, from breakdown to breakdown, from north to south and back again and again and again (she sleeps in my garage as I type).
I guess I'll never forget that moment...stranded on my own in the middle o' nowhere...that arm, that finger, that voice...and the advice not taken.
* * *
posted by Jonas | 6/27/2010 12:47:00 AM
6 Comments:
What a great story! Love it.
Lol. I have a Ford :) I also had a boyfriend in highschool who had a white 914. I felt like a million bucks when he drove me around in that thing.
I laughed too.
Does your Porsche still run? Do you take her out often?
On a completely unrelated note, I love the word "beast". I've had a smile plastered on my face since reading that word in the beginning of this post.
Ha. That's a great story.
First car I drove as teenager: 1953 Ford. Loved that car.
fabulous story - ironically reminds me of my own "ford" story - when back in the mid 70's i owned a 65 yellow mustang in which the previous owner had put a racing engine - that little sweet thing could truly ride - in any event, i drove her here and there and everywhere several times over - when i sold her to a local police officer for his personal car, there were parts [accelerator arm if i remember correctly] of her insides still being held together with a bobby pin and paperclip from when i'd broken down on the side of the road on a backwoods town in eastern louisiana right after i bought my little car - stranded and alone so i used what i had -
neat post!
I gots me lotsa "road" stories.
They're quite entertaining, actually (in retrospect).
I remember spending a week in Red-something Wyoming/Montana (mebbe Idaho?). A torsion bar on my Porsche gave up the ghost and I waited for a replacement to be shipped to this miniscule town in the middle of great big nowhere. It was one of the goofiest weeks of my life. The memories, decades later, still crack me up.
No, Anna, the beast sleeps under a blanket of rust.
My first car? A 1959 Rambler American. A honey of a machine that burned more oil than gasoline. As I recall, not a single instrument/gauge on the dashboard actually functioned. Good times.
WOW! '65 Mustang! Old Skool!
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