WEEKEND CAR

Another of Grandpa’s Stories

When I came along, Papa was doing real well, with the hog farm and the chain of grocery stores. He had bought Frank (who was 20 years older than I was) a Model A Ford Roadster - a beautiful little old car with the rumble seat and everything.

In 1927, the year I was born, Papa bought a brand new Pontiac automobile. Paid cash for it.

It was some kind of nice, with two big spare wheels one on each side, indentions into the fenders up front, and a big old Indian up there on the radiator. Brass radiator and a brass Indian on the radiator cap. In the stomach part of the Indian was a thermometer you could see from the driver’s seat, to read the temperature of the water in the radiator.

It was a four-door. It had special upholstery seats in it with the buttons and all. Curtains on the window. Window shades you could pull up and down just like in a house. Carpet on the floor. Oh, it was fancy. The thing! He built a garage for it, and he drove it up on wooden running boards. Only time he drove the car was on Saturday or Sunday, if you went anywhere. It didn’t get drove otherwise. So, with it out of the weather, it stayed like new for a long, long time.

That was the first car I ever rode in, and for a long time I thought it was going to be the last one, because it just kept staying in the family. We kept all those vehicles during the Depression. When Papa died we didn’t have enough gas to run them, but we still kept that Pontiac in the garage. Later on, my brother went to driving and using it. Sometime during the latter part of the war, something happened to the rear end of it. A fellow there in Raleigh had fixed it one time. Back then you could put up a differential two different ways. If you put it up the wrong way, you wouldn’t have but one forward gear and three backwards, because it was a four-speed transmission. I remember him putting it up backwards and then taking it down and putting it up the other way. That’s what went bad on it finally, and Frank decided he‘d just sell it to Max Bane’s junk yard.

EXTENDED WARRANTY

We made the deal, shook hands with our salesperson, and were introduced to the finance man. He was the real salesman. He offered us this extended warranty that was God’s gift to car owners.

He started telling us all about our opportunities to protect everything on the car forever ‘til the end of time. Or we could go down the ladder and cover a little less with every step down.

I sat there and listened. I was boiling. We had wheeled and dealed until we had the monthly payment exactly ten dollars above where we wanted it, and we had allowed them the ten dollars. Now they were convinced that this car needed an exceptionally expensive warranty.

I said, “Well maybe this car isn’t so great. After all, it has been a rental car. Who knows what it’s been through?”

He started backtracking, telling me that being a rental car meant it had been serviced especially well. Hmmmm.. Isn’t that like saying that hookers don’t have VD?

Long story short, we bought a low class warranty - just in case this hooker had missed a tune-up here and there.

ABOUT THESE PIGMENTS...

"Real Artists" don’t shop at Michael’s, but I swallowed my artist snobbery and entered. It’s the only game in town and I needed paint.

So there I stood in front of a rack of watercolors trying to dredge up old facts that I’m sure must be floating around in this brain somewhere. Ten years ago, I knew every color’s name and its qualities. Various pigments do different things, you see, and mix together in different ways. All I could remember was that the pigments in cadmiums separate when mixed. I tried to remember which colors were the overpowering ones that could (and had) ruin a painting if you’re not careful. Scarlet Lake is one, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember the others.

I asked the guy helping me if he knew anything about watercolors, and he said, "Yes, a little." I knew this would be a short conversation.

I picked out Sap Green, Hooker’s Green Dark, Cadmium Red, and Alizarin Crimson. I always liked the sound of those colors.

Meanwhile, I wonder why they don’t harvest hairball pigment? It’s a permanent stain.