Mom passed on her passion
Writer Jil McIntosh says her mother, left, was happiest behind the wheel.
May 10, 2008
Unusual for a woman of her generation, my mother loved cars. She was very specific about them: they had to be full-size two-doors, and more important, they had to be red.
She also knew absolutely nothing about them beyond where the key went, but she said that was all she really had to know. She'd regularly pull up on the wrong side of the gas pump, because it was up to the gas jockey, and so she had no need to remember where the filler cap was located.
Divorced from my father, and living with her parents, she had quirks that would probably be labelled "disorders" today.
Driving seemed to temporarily exorcise the demons in her head, and she'd go for hours, just meandering aimlessly around neighbourhoods.
She'd been an interior decorator, and she loved to cruise slowly by houses with open windows, checking out their decor. My grandparents always expected a visit from the police, telling them she'd been picked up for peeping.
She learned to drive on a 1920s Star, taught by my grandfather, who was born just two years after the automobile was invented.
Having learned on a standard, she appreciated the ease of an automatic transmission, if not its inner workings: she thought the missing clutch had simply been amalgamated into the brake.
So when she taught me how to drive, her first lesson was to always keep my foot on the brake when shifting from Park into Drive; otherwise, I'd burn out the clutch.
She was also adamant about colour. Green cars were bad luck, to be avoided at all costs. On a trip to Buffalo, N.Y., her red Dodge Monaco caught fire while we were sitting at a light – which resulted in her television debut when it made the evening news.
At the rental agency, the only car they had was a Chevrolet Nova, and the only Nova they had was green. Mother's favourite phrase was "conniption fit," and she threw an admirable one.
I almost spent the rest of my childhood in Tonawanda until she finally calmed down and accepted the keys. I know it's silly, but early lessons sink in: to this day, I won't buy a green car.
The Nova had a new gadget: tiny turn signals on the tops of the fenders, facing the driver. Mother was fascinated by them, and was equally thrilled when the car she bought to replace the burned one also came so equipped.
The new car also had a new-style heater, and she'd been trying to figure out how to turn on the defroster – at least, that's the story she told the cop who pulled her over for making a right turn from the middle lane the day she got it.
She turned her considerable charm on the young constable, who let her off with a warning.
She'd be 90 now, and I'm guessing that if she were around, she'd still be happiest inside a car. She didn't have the skills that women of her day passed on to their daughters – she couldn't cook or sew, for example. But I have to thank her for this: she taught me how to love to drive.
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