ModelTMitch, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, naps as the keeper and Phyllis head off to ink a wheels deal that may last longer than the keeper; and, of course, moves the keeper to recall his first two cars–a model T Ford pickup and a ’32 Chevy, both retrieved from behind neighbors’ machine sheds where they had been abandoned.
Then there were the all too brief carefree days of the red Studebaker convertible, followed by many more years of family-toting “wagons,” and finally now to vehicles that intrude into the keeper’s personal life to a degree that has him checking to see if he is wearing appropriate driving underwear.
A car should not be an intimidating mass of complicated computers all programed to make a driver feel like a fly on the side of a rocket to the moon. A car should be a simple device with four wheels and an engine and mechanical controls that do what they are supposed to do without arguing about it.
Were it not for Phyllis’s computer screen agility, the keeper would have driven through the entire summer with the seat-heater on and rock music blaring. That is why he rarely goes anywhere without Phyllis: he is simply afraid to be alone with the car, a pitiful circumstance for a grown (overgrown) man!
