CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter
It had 53,640 miles on the odometer. My wife laughs every time I mention that. “How can you remember things like that?” Well, because up to that point, it was the most important number in my life.
That was followed up months later when the odometer went to 55,555.5 just as I pulled into the Shell station at the edge of town to get a gallon of gas. I didn’t say “Fill it up” in those days, It was “one gallon” or “five gallons,” according to whether I had the 29 cents that each gallon cost.
Actually, it was closer to 55,555.6, because I had to pull forward a bit to get the gas cap to line up with the pump, but it still looked like a row of 5s, a most remarkable feat. I tried to get all the guys who were hanging around at the station to come look at the odometer. Only one was willing, and he just took a glance and went back to… whatever.
I was flabbergasted. Didn’t they know how unusual, and thus important, this was, to turn up a whole row of 5s just when you could stop and contemplate how unusual and complete that was?
It was our first car, the first time we could afford a car, because it was during the Korean War, and my father had gotten a job at the Whirlpool factory in Evansville, making M1 rifles. It was a hurry-up contract, and they were willing to hire even a blind man. Strangely, his job was to clean the rifles at the end of the manufacturing. You didn’t need to be able to see to do that. The routine was that you did two swabs and three wipes and four something elses. At that point, the rifle was clean, regardless. That’s the way assembly line manufacturing works.
So, between the two of us, we had enough money for a down payment on a used Chevy, with reasonable expectations of making the monthly payments. Also, we finally had a driver, for I had turned sixteen and taken driver’s training in school, and Aunt Dorothy had taken me to Winslow to get my driver’s license. Dad could not get a license, of course, and Mother had never driven a car. I thought of that magnificent gun-metal gray conveyance as “my” car, since I was the only driver, although my parents definitely did not share that idea.
For a year, that car was the be-all and end-all of my existence. So when that row of 5s showed up on the odometer, I thought it was the top event of the year. Nobody else cared. Not even Darrel, my best friend, when I told him about it. He said “Cool” and changed the subject back to girls. I mean, who could be interested in girls when you had a car that could rack up a row of 5s just when you had a chance to stop and contemplate its meaning?
Nurse Willis still laughs every time she sees me, and says, “Here comes the pinnacle of irrelevance.” That’s because I told her about how Ernie, the grand-dog, had ignored me when we saw him after several months of absence. I had always been his favorite person, but it had been too long. I hadn’t taken him for a walk or given him a treat for six months. “You are at the pinnacle of irrelevance,” I had told Nurse Willis, “when the dog ignores you.”
I’m not sure why Nurse Willis thinks that is so funny, but it’s a good reminder. Nobody cares how many miles I have on my odometer, not even a dog. Except me. I care. Some things, it’s okay if you’re the only one who cares about them. That’s why I remember that number, 53,640.
John Robert McFarland
No comments:
Post a Comment