In order to understand the very different men in my life, I attempt to size them up employing their individual relationships with their cars.
My father is outdoorsy – a geologist by profession, although now retired. Nick a rock here. Gather a fossil there. He is a man’s man, but has never shown any fondness for machinery. Although brought up to be a gentleman, motors and gears had a way of bringing out the inner beast. Some of my earliest memories involve my dad bent over some motor, cursing out the Industrial Age.
My father would invariably change the tires on our Volkswagen van when they needed it, but you would never see him drool over aftermarket center caps or custom chrome grille work on a car. You might see him checking the water level in the radiator or putting some Rustoleum on spots that had rusted on the van, but you would never see him using a toothbrush to scrub headlights or using Q-tips to clean the knobs on the dash. These things just didn’t take place in our garage.
On the other hand, my father-in-law is unquestionably a car man. He can tell you the make, model and year of every vehicle that’s travelled down the Pennsylvania turnpike. His ideal way to pass a Saturday afternoon would be checking out a 1962 Chevy at a local Antique Club Car Show or scrubbing his own whitewalls.
He grew up in rural northern Pennsylvania and graduated rapidly from a pacifier to a pitchfork and pliers. Where he grew up, farm boys were expected to learn all they could about animal farming and automobile mechanics. He has preserved his passion for gizmos, wheels, and engines, but has no interest in animals. He left the farm, never looking back, and went to college.
My hubby is also a teacher; just like both of our fathers, but that is the only thing they share. He doesn’t like camping out, carefully washing his cars, or collecting rocks. He loves to spend his Saturday grading papers as he sips fancy coffee beverages at Starbucks.
He puts gasoline in the car, but would be more likely to keep his American Racing center caps as paperweights on his desk, than as a cool way to pimp his ride. Not that he has anything against anyone who obsesses over their center caps. He vacuums his vehicle twice a year, but is satisfied to drive about town with “Wash me!” scrawled above his rusty bumper for a year at a time.
The young man that my daughter dates is a pepped up version of my father-in-law. When I have the chance, I am going to send them to an auto parts store together so they can rapidly bond. My daughter gave her boyfriend a performance exhaust kit for his birthday and he is thrilled that the tailpipe growls deeply. He says it lets everybody know he’s arrived. My daughter smiles saying, “I can hear him coming from more than a mile away.” It’s obvious that she’s in the throes of young love!
It’s true that men and the relationships they have with their automobiles are complex. It seems that these relationships can be an expression of some men’s masculinity, while other men handle their cars as an opponent that’s a nuisance that must be conquered or endured.
Some men give their cars names and some curse them. Some give their cars a lot of TLC and others demand bragging rights because their car or truck is a total beater or has the most mileage. Car stories are sold over beers, like war stories used to be shared around a campfire.
Why else is the auto industry able to sell billions of dollars of chrome, rims, seat covers, backup sensors, window tint, fancy headlights, dash accoutrements and aftermarket center caps, exhausts, hoods, auto alarms and decals?
Whether the vehicle in the driveway is fuel for cursing or cooing, I’m prone to think there’s some kind of mechanised mojo in there – something reminiscent to “If you build it, he will come.”