In this space, I have written about several road trips I
have taken over the years. Once or twice I have taken a side trip in these
stories. This is another side trip.
A few years after I learned to drive, my parents helped me
buy a car. It was an early 1970s Road Runner. Sorry, I can’t recall the model
year although I want to say it was 1973. The car had bucket seats and an
eight-track player. My brother, who made a living using Bondo, sandpaper, water
and paint to become an excellent paint and body man, used his talent to
transform the car from Tootsie lollipop brown with a black stripe to black with
a white stripe. Somewhere I have a photograph of the finished product.
I did not keep the car for long. You see there was a
drinking problem. The car liked to drink oil and gas. When I went away to
college, I did not drive it there so it sat for several months. In my first summer
home, I sold the car and bought a late 1970s Datsun car. It was canary yellow
with a black stripe. It was a much more sensible option for me. College was a seven-hour
trip one way so the car with the better gas mileage seemed to be a no-brainer.
During my college years, that yellow car, sometimes referred
to as the Yellow Rose, was my primary means of getting from Point A to Point B.
While the car was reliable much of the time, it had its moments of frustrating unreliability.
One trip back to college, it sputtered while leaving a rest area. The car ran
okay as long as I kept my foot on the gas. When we stopped for lunch, I told a
friend who was driving his Chevy Luv truck to not leave me since my car was
sputtering at times. My friend did as I asked. Somehow, I made it safely
through Nashville. A few hours later, I had to exit the interstate. At the end
of the ramp, I would have to stop for traffic. I was not sure I could come to a
complete stop without the car quitting. So, I closed one eye, did not stop, and
made the left turn safely. I got in the car the next day and it ran like a top.
There were other such incidents. She sputtered and quit under a red light on a Saturday night in Jackson. That incident involved a tow truck and a ride back to campus in the back of a pick-up on a cold autumn night. Another time I parked in a restricted campus parking lot to pick up my friend, Roger. In my haste to not get a ticket, I backed directly into a concrete barrier centering the trunk. For years after this, every time Roger rode with me, he looked at me, grinned then held his neck.
Most of my friends had such cars during college. Ligon had a Studebaker. Gordo had a huge blue Dodge we called the Tank. I joked once that car was so big if you were in the backseat and needed to talk to someone in the front seat you had to place a long-distance phone call. Not to be outdone, Skip owned a huge beige car we referred to as the Banana Boat. Hester had the Im-puh-luh. Young had a Cadillac. Others had Monte Carlos, Pintos, Volvos, Suburus, K-Cars, and pick-up trucks. Most of these vehicles seemed to be held together with duct tape, spit, chewing gum, and a prayer. Still, they did what they had to do when we needed them.
I traveled many miles in that yellow car, most of them during my college years. Less than a year after my graduation, it stalled on the side of the road about an hour away from my parents' home. I called my Dad and he called a longtime family friend with a tow truck who hauled that old yellow car home. We worked on it and got it running again. I sold it. For a time I lived in my hometown, then later not too far away. It became commonplace for me to see that car around town.
One day I pulled into a gas station in my hometown. I looked at the pump in front of me, and there she was. I knew it was her. She still had an old college parking sticker attached to the back bumper. I could not resist. I walked over to the driver. I told him I once owned the car he was driving. I asked him how it was working for him. He replied he had never had a lick of trouble from the car. At that moment, I relived moments when I stood on the side of the road because the car quit. I had never wanted to kick that car more than I did at that moment. I wished him well and went on my way.
There were a lot of road trips in that old yellow car, Jackson, Nashville, home, jaunts around west Tennessee, and a few times down nearby backroads in an attempt to just clear my mind. There is a Thom Schulyer song popularized by Dan Seals called “My Old Yellow Car”. While every line in that song doesn’t fit my experience I must admit when I hear the song these lines somehow speak to me:
“There was no road too winding and nowhere too far
With two bucks of gas and my old yellow car.
Somewhere in a pile of rubber and steel
There’s a rusty old shell of an automobile
And if engines could run on desire alone
That old yellow car would be driving me home.”
Playlist for "Road Trip: The Yellow Rose"
Dan Seals "My Old Yellow Car"
Emmylou Harris "White Line"
The Cars "Drive"
Gary Numan "Cars"
Steve Earle "Copperhead Road"
Lone Justice "Ways To Be Wicked"
Creedence Clearwater Revival "Keep On Chooglin'"
Ronnie Milsap "She Loves My Car"
Jason and the Scorchers "Absolutely Sweet Marie"
Georgia Satellites "Keep Your Hands To Yourself"
Don Henley "The Boys of Summer"
John Hiatt "Riding With The King"
