Memorable drive # 3

New York City, 1973. I’m running an errand for my employer (a parcel to take to New Haven). I’m driving his car.

So, up the Taconic Parkway we go. I use the royal “we”. It’s the least I can do when at the wheel of a brand new Chrysler Imperial.

On my way back to New York, it’s dark already, and I’m going down Park Avenue. From its Northern end, I can see the whole of the Avenue waving up and down gently. It’s dotted with dozens of street lights, and that’s when a sort of magic ballet commences : if you stay at exactly 30mph, you always go through green lights. There are angels opening doors for you. As you get to the top of a gentle slope, you can see, far away, lights turning red, then further even, other lights turning green. This in itself, is exhilarating, but when the radio starts playing Waldteufel’s Valse des Patineurs, it becomes an enchantment. It is broken when I have to turn left on 84^th Street and on to Gracie Square, but it remains an unforgettable moment of sights and sounds.

Memorable driving moments, Part II

January 1967. Same Interstate, but going west, this time. My wife needs the car in Toronto, and I have to take a lot of things back to Pittsburgh, so I rented a car. I am at the wheel of a brand new Dodge Polara. She’s a delight : quiet, powerful, comfortable, the sort of car that makes you feel (quite wrongly, of course) that nothing wrong could possibly happen.

It’s starting to snow : very small flakes. Soon, the whole lugubrious landscape turns white : a distinct improvement. The Polara is by design an extremely quiet car, but on a thin layer of snow, she becomes completely silent. I so enjoy the silence that it would be a crime, I feel, to turn on the radio. I glide, I hover, I levitate. It’s absolutely exhilarating, especially as I am almost alone on the highway. I drive by the diner where I stopped before, and I can’t help wondering what happened to the pathetic bride and groom and their guests. I do wish them well.

The magic disappears as I branch off to get on to Interstate 79. Two and a half hours to Pittsburgh… Back to normality, so to speak.

Memorable drives : Drive # 1

1966 : In my 1956 Oldsmobile 88 hardtop, I feel a sudden drop of power. It’s one week before Christmas, and I am almost alone on Interstate 90 East between Erie and Buffalo. The sky is overcast ; it’s cold but not freezing. No sign of human activity anywhere. A more monotonous, empty, grey and dark-green landscape is hard to imagine. What shall I do ? Wait by the side of the road, hoping for the hypothetical arrival a police cruiser or that of a good Samaritan ? Or, at the risk of killing the engine completely, do I keep limping at 30mph until I spot a small hub of human activity ? No cell phones in those days, obviously. I choose the second solution. Ten very long minutes later, I spot a cluster of grey buildings. I’m lucky : one of them is a repair center for trucks. The mechanics sympathize with my predicament, and agree to take in the Olds. It doesn’t sound too bad, they say, but they’ll need a few days to get the parts.

I take my small suitcase out of the trunk and make my way to a mangy-looking diner with peeling yellow paint. I arrive in the middle of a wedding celebration ; a very small one indeed : ten people at the most.

With his long hair and small mustache, the groom looks like Sonny Bono. He’s also donned flared trousers, a white shirt, a psychedelic tie and a red jacket. The bride, clearly pregnant, is a podgy little thing in a simple white dress with a tulle train stitched on as an afterthought. There is no champagne : just a non-descript bubbly, and the wedding cake looks as if it came from Gee Bee’s frozen foods department, and has been waiting in a back room for days. The general atmosphere is gloomy in a falsely cheerful way. These people are uneducated, unqualified no-hopers. They know it. Their eyes are vacant : they’ve accepted their fate. I feel sad for them. At the same time, I admire the way they keep going. Life is life : no questions asked.

Second time lucky : the Cleveland-Toronto bus will stop here briefly in a couple of hours. All is well.

The same bus brings me back a few days later. My car has been beautifully repaired for a very reasonable price.