Wheels

I remember being ten years old.
I remember being ten years old, wanting to be sixteen years old.

After waiting about six years it actually happened. On that one, solitary, magical day back a LONG time ago, I experienced several "firsts" of memorable proportions. That one day immediately after Labor Day when the new academic year commenced, I:
1. I started my Junior year at a new High School (that was hard)
2. Met a friend who is still my very best and closest (that has been easy)
3. Began to learn how to type (that's "keyboarding" for all you folks under thirty)
4. Started dating a cheerleader (switched to a different cheerleader some weeks later)
5. Celebrated my sixteenth birthday (after years of "x-ing" out my jail-house calendar), and
6. Hallelujah! I got my first Driver's License!
7. I also drove to school in my own 1964, shiny red convertible Chevy Impala (more later)

Big day.
I think my family might have made some remembrance of the milestone, but I could not swear to it in a court of law. They probably did, though. I don't know. It didn't really matter to me. What I remember most, of course, was obtaining my first "emancipation proclamation." What? You didn't view YOUR first driver's license as a huge means of freedom? I surely did. I just knew that my life would never be the same from that point onward. That's been proven true.

I got my "wheels" after saving my meager allowance and earnings beginning from age eight. It became my habit to take -- and later, mail -- my small deposits to my local bank, and then the BIG bank in Detroit, some fifty miles away. Funny thing, after a few years all those quarters and dimes started to have dollars in front of them in my bank book. Sweet! (Ah, the miracle of compound interest!)

Mom had promised me something at the outset of my saving adventure: "However much money you accumulate over the next eight years, your father and I will match it, so you can buy a car of your own when you turn sixteen." I thought I had won the lottery. Well, I didn't actually know what a lottery was in the third grade, but if I had, I would have thought I had won it. I stashed away nine hundred dollars over eight years. That was real money back then.

Oh, did I mention that I was certifiably CRAZY about cars? I was. I knew every model (back when every car and model actually looked different!), how much it cost, the engine displacement, the top speed she could go, and almost everything else anyone could know about cars without ever having owned one. Cars seemed to me to be the highest form of art. I LOVED cars then. I still have a strong affection for certain ones. Lulu is among the fond memories -- the shiny, red, convertible 1964 Chevy Impala.

On my birthday I was so excited that I bolted out of the house so I could fire up the dream chariot and motor over to the High School and park it in plain sight of all those kids I had never met. Yes, I was a shallow kid. And, YES the other kids at that school were also sufficiently shallow so that my arrival DID create something of a stir. I just parked it there, got out and looked at, started for the building, when back to brush a piece of lint off the perfect fender, turned to go inside and once more walked around the beauty before entering Marysville High School for the first time as a student.

There WAS a problem, however.
I did not have my license yet. At lunch hour, though, I drove across the street (yes, drove) to my Dad's medical practice and gathered him up for the trip to the Sheriff's Office in Port Huron. That made me legal, because I passed the written, vision, and road tests with flying colors. Bliss. Joy unspeakable. Freedom. Wheels!

Over two million miles later I still confess to a love affair with the automobile. Do I wish she were more economical? Yes. Do I prefer a somewhat slower pace these days compared to those heady times of testosterone poisoning? Sure. Am I going to get a scooter and save money and go really slow? NO! Wheels are just as intoxicating to me now as when I was a teenager. (By the way, boys and girls, never drive while intoxicated.)

Lulu has long since become razor blades or some other recycled hunk of steel. Too bad. If she were in the same shape as when she rolled into my driveway those many years ago, I could fetch a price MANY multiples of her cost to me then.

Okay, all that to say that the Middle School students of StillWaters, and their MANY friends, are invited to enjoy a pre-Christmas evening of roller skating at the KidSports Rink near the Salisbury Mall. Middle-schoolers, these will be YOUR wheels for the time being. Pretty low horse power, and not a lot of safety features built into roller skates, but they are wheels, nonetheless. More about the fun night on SUNDAY, 9 DECEMBER 2007 will be announced.

For those of you wondering, yes I DID receive three speeding tickets in the course of about three week a year or so later. That was enough to convince me of the foolishness of that. And, whenever I see a shiny, red, 1964 convertible Chevy Impala I longingly reflect on my Lulu.

God's best to each of you, and drive safely!