H. took our car for four days of business as a reporter on an exciting assignment--first to Maryland, then Philly, then flight to Denver, back to Philly, and return late Saturday night. My friend Anne has been good enough to shuttle me and Figgy a bit, and my friend Elaine insisted I borrow her car today and return it tomorrow, so I can go to Moey's daughter's eighth-grade graduation.But anytime I drive a car that's new to me, I worry about it rolling backwards when I park. And that's all because of Kathy R., a beautiful teenager [older than me, and big sister to my brother Will's friend, Gerry] with a great figure and long blonde California-sunshine hair who lived up the street on Bedford Road, right across from the park.
Swinging My Life Away
It was a sunny afternoon, and I was on the swings at Bedford Park, the ones with the heavy metal chains, the ones that let me pump high above the ballfield and see down into the woods. But I must have been facing the other way that day, toward the houses on our street. Suddenly, I saw Kathy's VW cruising backwards out of her driveway, ready to roll right across Bedford Road. I panicked.
It was really scary--would it crash into a car? Or bump onto the curb, over the sidewalk and into the park? The thing had spunk, and a mind of its own.
I ran over and rang the doorbell. Kathy came running out in her curvy jeans, jumped into the driver's seat and reversed the situation before the little Beetle hit the curb. She thanked me, smiling, and saying she had forgotten to step on some pedal or put on some brake--I forget. I was young.
Fear of Rolling
But today when I parked at CVS, I worried that Elaine's car would roll back into the lot, remembering Kathy's VW as though it were yesterday. At the doctor's office, same thing.
Of course, it didn't. But it's hard to shake a dramatic childhood image like that.
Rolling, rolling, rolling on a sidewalk.
P.S. I think my dear friend Fritch--my pal from kindergarten through high school, and even still, though she now lives in Texas--also had a powder-blue VW like the one pictured above. But I can't be 100% sure, because the last time I saw Fritch, within the last year, I said I remembered her driving around delivering prescriptions in this VW, and she said no, she had never delivered prescriptions!
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My dad a green VW and it was the best car ever. So sad when they stopped making them.
ReplyDeleteYou were a real hero that day you kept the car from rolling away!
ReplyDeleteThe summer before Mary joined the Peace Corps, she and I and a college friend toured the Southwest on money she won in a "Final Four" office pool. We flew into Albuquerque, got a rental car (in my name, insurance declined) and drove towards the Grand Canyon. We stopped in the Petrified Forest National Park and took a hike. On our way back, we looked up at the parking lot and noticed a car kind of poised on the edge of a 30' cliff, with about six inches of the bumper resting on a guardrail and the rest off the edge. Sure enough, it was our car. Mary had been driving this automatic transmission car and left it in drive without setting the handbrake... a very narrow escape! (These days, you can't get the keys out unless its in "park".)
Kim--Cliff had a green VW? So cute. Nan--that is a very near miss......you must have really panicked!!!!!! and then after the danger passed, laughed nervously? that sounds like a very nice trip though..... alice
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