Measure of a Man: Motors, Mileage, Mufflers and More
The men in my life are disparate, so when trying to size them up I use their relationships with automobiles as a path to help me understand them fuller.
My father is outdoorsy – a geologist by profession, although now retired. Chip a rock here. Gather a fossil there. He is a man’s man, but has never showed any fondness for machinery. Although raised 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, cussing out the Industrial Age.
My father would always change the tires on our Volkswagen camper, but I never saw him fawning over aftermarket center caps or grille work. While he would from time to time dab some Rust-o-leum onto oxidized places on the van or put water in the radiator, you would never see him take a Q-tip to the dashboard knobs or scrub the headlamps with a toothbrush.
But Then, my father-in-law is decidedly 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 spend a Sunday afternoon would be checking out a 1962 Ford at a local Antique Club Car Show or scrubbing his own whitewalls.
Growing up in rural northern Pennsylvania, he rapidly graduated from teething ring to pliers and pitchfork. Farm boys learned the ABCs of mechanics along with animal farming at an early age. The affinity with motors and wheels and all the associated gadgets stuck, although fondness for animals did not. He left the farm to go to college and never looked back.
My hubby is a professor, just like his father and my father, but that is where their similarities end. He doesn’t meticulously clean his cars, collect rocks, or go camping. He likes to spend Saturdays enjoy java at a local Starbuck, grading papers, and connecting with friends on Facebook.
He keeps his car full of gas, but would probably use his American Racing center caps as paperweights on his desk, than as a trendy way to floss his ride. Not that he has anything against someone who obsesses over their center caps. He vacuums his vehicle bi-annually, but is satisfied to motor about town with “Wash me!” scrawled above his rusted bumper for a year at a time.
My daughter’s beau is a juiced up variation of my father-in-law. (I think they would bond speedily if sent together on an errand to a car parts store.) The Boyfriend got a performance exhaust kit for Christmas and is content now that his car’s exhaust growls deeply, letting everybody know he has arrived. “I can hear him coming a mile away,” my daughter smiles, obviously in the throes of young love.
It’s true that men and the relationships they have with their cars are complicated. It seems that their relationships can be an reflection of some men’s masculinity, while other men handle their cars as an antagonist that’s a nuisance that must be conquered or suffered.
Some name their cars, and others blaspheme them. Some handle their vehicles with TLC, while others declare bragging rights because their car or truck is beaten or has the most mileage. Car stories are exchanged over beers, like war stories used to be shared around a campfire.
Why else is the auto industry capable of selling billions of dollars of chrome, mag wheels, seat covers, backup detectors, window tinting, upgrade headlamps, dash accoutrements and aftermarket center caps, exhausts, hoods, automobile alarms and decals?
Whether the ride in the drive is the reason for cooing or swearing, there has to be some form of mechanical mojo occurring – something like, “if you build it, he will come.”
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 29th, 2011 at 4:03 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.