List 21 - Ten Reasons Your First Car Wasn't as Good as Mine

People, I hate to brag, but I think I will.  Sometimes it can't be helped.  I regret to make you sad about your first car, but it has to be done.

Here are the reasons my first car was better than yours:

1.  The first is easy - my uncle Mickey GAVE it to me!  Really.  Imagine the surprise as we finished a lunch at my grandmother's and he tossed me a set of keys and told me to run upstairs.  It was a moment.  In case you're wondering, I'll inform you that the song that was playing on the radio when I started it was 'I'll be Working my Way Back to You' by the Spinners.

2.  It was a Pinto.  You heard that right, folks, a Pinto.  I did not have a Gremlin or a Pacer.  I had a Pinto.

  

3.  My car had many nicknames, the most formidable being The Murph-Mobile.

4.  The Pinto was blue and it was multi-colored, simultaneously.  You don't understand that?  I'll explain.  When I received the car, it was blue - sort of a royal blue.  The fun part came during the car washes, though.  Each time I washed the car, new colors were revealed.  Apparently, the car had endured many color changes.  And, though I left a tremendous mess in the bottom of car washes all over Athens, Georgia, seeing the revealed new colors was quite a rush!  If memory serves me correctly, the Murphmobile had lived as red, silver, gray and black. 

5.  My car was a teaching tool.  I cannot guess at the number of people who learned how to drive a stick-shift in it.  And, it was open to everyone.  Many times, my friends from the other lunch period would borrow her to go out on some adventure or another.  It would always be safely back in its parking place behind Cedar Shoals High School when it was time for B Lunch, ready for me and the next group.  

6.  It was the perfect canvas for tempra paints, making it the obvious choice for various projects.  There were many, but leading the homecoming parade of 1981 was our crowning glory.  

7.  It was an all-terrain vehicle.  The Ford manufacturers may not have intentionally planned it that way, but we easily made the Pinto somewhat amphibious.  It spent hours and hours in the woods, fields, creeks, trails, and off-road adventures in the un-chartered areas between Cedar Creek (my neighborhood) and our high school.  I remember a couple of particular times when it was difficult to explain the weeds, reeds, red clay, roots, and debris that had clung underneath the car.  

8.  The Murphmobile had a dynamite sound system, but the operator had to be trained in its operation.  In order for the radio/tape player to work, the driver had to have the clutch in.  

9.  Oddly enough, one did not have to press the clutch to switch gears.  (So, it was a bit of a toss-up.  Feeling lazy?  No need for the clutch.  Wanting tunes?  Step on the clutch.)  

10.  The Pinto was open-air in its own way, which allowed me to keep an eye on the road in ways others just couldn't do.  Just to the right of the sturdy middle console, on the floor of the passenger side, was a small hole.  Upon being gifted with the car I don't remember the hole.  Upon letting go of the car a few years later, it was pushing the size of a cantaloupe.  

11.  I realize the title of this post was "Ten Reasons" so this Number 11 is thrown in for the readers who stay with me this long.  I'm hoping my Dad does not.  (I know I'm forty eight, but I'm afraid he'll read this and we'll still have to have a little talk.)   This was one of the best things about the car and this is one of the reasons that I'm happy they don't exist anymore so that my children won't have one.   The original design of the Pinto, with it's long two front doors, large hatch-back and sloping back window lent itself to an after-school activity like no other.  One could stand on the back fender, lay complete body over the car, reach arms to the side and grasp the inside of each side's window to hold on.  With a friend stretched atop the entirety of the steel magnificence, the driver could send the holder-onner on a ride unlike any other in the world.  

There they are, friends.  I assume I've left you no doubts that my original point is true.  I'm sorry for you all.  You may have been like those I grew up with - you may maneuvered around in a smoky gray Camaro 280-Z or a trusty Mustang or a bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle or a shimmery Monte Carlo.  I'm sorry if you did.  I had pals with the same problems.  

It was the first few years of the amazing eighties, and I was the one with the '71 Pinto.  I drove it most, but it sort of belonged to all of us.  

My mind travels off and wonders about the ole' Murphmobile every so often.  I pray it's resting on a hill, surrounded by big shady oak trees, sweet singing song birds and colorful wildflowers blowing in the warm winds.  The Murph was generous, so I'm sure she has donated organs by this time, and it's time for a nice long rest.  She gave us adventures like no others, ran out of gas on Gaines School Road more times than I can remember and took my friends and I everywhere we needed to go, with a style like no one else's.  

God bless my Pinto, my Uncle Mickey and my parents!  Those were good times.

Monday Morning Mary George

I'm forgoing the usual 'Monday Morning What is it?' because this is a special week - this week I've decided to use the whole week to highlight an incredible person I've known.

On Saturday I woke up and realized that it was my Mother's birthday.  Of course I had known that before that morning, but the busy week had let it slip from my mind.  When it came back to me, I took a few moments to just think about her.  I spent a little more time than usual to consider how old she would be if she were still alive and what she might be doing.  I guess I've done that before, but maybe I've not given myself the time to really let it sink in.  On Saturday I did.  I thought about how it had been twenty one years since I last saw my Mom and I thanked God that most days I can still hear her laugh in my head.  Twenty one years is a long time.  A long time when you consider all that happens in lifetimes in twenty one years.

I did the math and realized that my mother would have been seventy three on Saturday and thought about how different that is from fifty two.  It was a lot to think about.  My sister and I, and all of my Mom's friends and family, have done a lot of things since we've seen her.  A lot has happened.  Of course I've kept her posted and I have a strong sense that she knows the good stuff, the way we all are doing.

I thought about devoting the blog this week to her and I instantly liked the idea.  And then I had a little laugh - my Mom never knew about blogs.   She was such a writer, I'm sure she would have one today if she were still here!  I can just imagine all of the stories she would tell, all of the ways that she would have us all en-rapt and laughing and crying and thinking.

Maybe her story-telling is what I'll tell you most about.  There is lots to say about Mary George Dean Murphy; but if I had to describe her in one word, there is no doubt that the word would be storyteller. 
I have a sense that those of you who knew her are nodding your heads right about now.

This week I want to tell you some of her stories, and let her tell you some.  I want to tell you about how hilarious she was, what a devoted and life-changing teacher she was and I want to tell you about her bravery.  I don't want to make her perfect.   That would not be fair.  I won't tell you that we got along perfectly in all of our twenty seven years together or that my Mom's life was full of bliss.  No one's life is perfect and that wouldn't do justice to the many layers that were her life.  I remember a conversation I had with my good friend and priest, Martha, just after Mom died.  Martha gave me insight about remembering my Mom and she urged me not to do the 'easy thing' and make her perfect in death.  That was good advice.  Lives are too full of too many different things, and sweeping the hard stuff under the table seems too much like erasing part of the life.  My Mom's life was wonderful and hard and complex and interesting and rich and so much more.  I can't tell that story in one week, but it will be fun to try.  Thanks for coming along on the ride.

I've read that blog posts should be short and concise - excuse me, as I ignore that rule.  Today I want to let my Mom tell a story.  I want you to meet her (or reunite with her) with her as narrator.    Narrator was a role she liked!

Like me, my mother had close relationships with both of her grandmothers and they meant a great deal to her.  She often told me about all that she learned from each of them, different things that made her life richer and wiser.  Mama Jones, her mother's mother lived in the country and Mama Dean, her father's mother, lived in the city.  They couldn't have been any more different.

 Mama Dean (the town grandmother) and Mama Jones (the country grandmother)

I knew Mama Dean (the one from the city) and loved her.  If I could do her justice, I would write a book about her.  She was larger than life and left us with boocoos (did you get that flashback to an earlier post?) of stories.  Mom never got to write her story about Mama Dean, and she wanted to.  She told me often that she was attempting to come up with the right story, the one that would paint a picture of Mama Dean.  She had figured out how to illustrate Mama Jones, but she was working on what to say about her other grandmother.

So, this story is about Mama Jones, her country grandmother.  When I came into the picture, Mama Jones was a tiny woman, quiet and very old.  My mother could make me see what she had been in life, but I did not witness it myself.  My mother told me some of her magic, and I've always been grateful to have this story.

It's long, but I hope you'll find time to read it.  I think you'll enjoy it.  I imagine that it can be a fun respite from this world to take a few moments and read about another time.  Maybe you can wonder about some of the folks in your family who lived before.

Enjoy this gift from my Mom . . .

Watch out - Bipedalism is rampant . . . a vocabulary lesson.

George Willis Dean was my grandfather, my Papa, my mother's father.   I could probably publish an entire blog around only him.  There are many, many stories.  He was a huge presence to me, a big man who took up the whole room.  Funny how our feelings and perspectives shape what we actually see, I thought until I was about thirty that he was physically large.  It wasn't until a friend referred to Papa as a "cute little man" that I saw that he was actually rather small.  I remember that as one of the first times I realized how much what we 'feel' shapes what we 'see.'

Papa was incredibly intelligent, intensely loyal and wisely witty, though sometimes I'm not sure he meant to be.  I can remember whole conversations with him, conversations from when I was nine or ten and conversations from when I was a teenager and young adult.  I can remember his advice, I can actually hear him going on and on about his fear that all he believed in was free falling straight to the dogs - just about everything.

He fervently worked to preserve history, his past and others, he recited poetry that he had first memorized in his boyhood, he lamented that schools no longer taught penmanship, and I live in thanksgiving that he didn't live to see the world's relationships with social networks.  There would not have been enough thirty minute talks after Wheel of Fortune in his den in Douglas, Georgia to even begin to try to explain all of that!  He wouldn't understand.  He'd be sad.  I would agree with much of his anger and be a little unsettled about some of it.  That's how I was with so many things about Papa.

I think about him often, hear his voice, imagine what he'd say about my kids.  Lots of times when he comes to mind, I remember laughing.  He told great stories and we laughed a lot.  He could make us all feel like we were actually growing up in 1920 in Uvalda, Georgia!  He told stories about school, about his siblings and crazy tales of adventures from a time when things were a little different.  I loved those stories.

As I'm sure you understand at this point, Papa wasn't one who would be described as open-minded.  He knew what he knew, he thought what he thought, and he was solid in that.  He saw no need to change any of that and felt like the world and all of us in it were doing what we could to destroy what he loved best.  He shuttered about things that didn't bother me, he argued about politics with my mother, and he grunted through most of the CBS Nightly News.  


I laughed this morning, thinking about a time that my uncle really got him - a time Papa's wisdom didn't win out over his feelings about the world going to 'you know where' in a handbasket!  This is a good one, and I wish I had thought of it!  

My uncle, Papa's son, got up from the dining room table where we used to eat every meal, and walked over to look out the window.  He worked up his most disgusted voice, glanced off to the side of the yard, sighed and said, "Goodness, look at those bipedals walking down the road."

"Pathetic" Papa replied, "What is this world coming to?  Ayyyy me, me."  (Ayyyyy me, me was one of Papa's favorite phrases and he explained years ago that it meant that things just weren't good.)

Ha!  The laughs were grand and loud when my uncle explained that "bipedals" were beings who walked upright on two hind legs.  I can see his face now!

View a few precious bipedals and have a great day.