It was a confluence of events that has led me to write this post. The first event was a new book I was reading the book “Why We Drive” by Matthew Crawford. The essential premise of the book is that driving is one of our essential freedoms that is being threatened by automation especially self-driving cars.[1] The other event came from a photo sent to me by my childhood friend. We’ve known each other since I was ten and we both have been having fun recently discovering old photos. One of them was of the Fiat I drove when I was in college. It was a great car and what follows is its story which includes the book’s theme of driving as freedom.
First some of the back story. When I got my license my senior year in high school (I was young in my class so I didn’t drive until my senior year) my parents got me a 1966 sky blue Ford Galaxy 500 convertible. It was along the size of the Chrysler described in the song “Love Shack” (“it seats about 20”). It was a cool first car. It’s suspension was so loose I could go over the speed bumps in my high school parking lot without slowing down. I got it in September and it died in August just before I went off to college.
When I returned home that Thanksgiving from my first semester at college I found that my parents had purchased a 1974 Fiat TC 1600. It was a small, boxy four-door sedan. It had small tires like those old Mini Coopers that were memorialized in “The Italian Job”. Inside it had an oversized steering wheel that looked like it was transplanted from a city bus. The other interesting feature was that the key was on the left side of the steering wheel (to this day I frequently put my keys in the left pocket of my pants). It only had an AM radio so I usually drove around with a small boom box listening to cassette tapes of Little Feat and The Band. My mother drove the car to work in the next town but during school vacations and the summer the Fiat became my car. Sometimes something just fits who you are and that was the case with the Fiat. It was the car I was meant to be driving during those years. My aforementioned childhood friend had a similar relationship with one of his cars. It was a gray 1968 mustang that he dubbed “The Gray Ghost”. It had soul.
In the spring of 1980 for some reason I brought the car back to college after Easter of my senior year. Most people didn’t have cars at school back then so the Fiat became a bit of a novelty. It also brings me back to the book and the freedom we feel when driving. Like I said most of us didn’t have cars and did very little driving during the school year. By the end of the second semester with exams looming the stress level was amped up. One day one of my close friends asked me if he could borrow the car. I said sure and asked where he was going. Nowhere he replied, he just needed get off campus and drive. No destination, just the sensation, freedom, of driving to let off a little steam. I thought of this again as I was reading “Why We Drive”.
After college I went to gradute school in Boston. I took the Fiat and parked on the side street next to the house where I rented a room from Mrs. Stevenson (“No noise and no girls”). That first January in Boston was frigid. The Fiat wouldn’t start for most of that month. I watched the weather report every day to see if the temperature would rise into the 30’s and if I might have a chance of getting the Fiat off the curb. Sometime later that winter I got a notice in the mail that the Fiat was being recalled because of a corrosion problem with the steering column. I brought the car in to an inspection site in the area. After a brief examination I was informed that the corrosion problem was unfixable and they would have to take the car for which they paid me the princely sum of $1,000. I was rich but now carless. So that was the end. From the fall of 1976 to the spring of 1981 the Fiat carried me well and accompanied me on some fine times. As Neil Young said “Long May You Run”.
ARTS ROUNDUP
Music: Neil Young, “Homegrown”. Speaking of Neil Young, this was the album that was scheduled to be released in the summer of 1975 when Young switched gears (as he often does) and released “Tonight’s The Night” instead. “Homegrown” was shelved and, as one reviewer put it, stripped for parts as many of the songs showed up on later albums in their original (“Star of Bethlehem”) or reworked form (the title track). It’s always difficult to place an album like this back into its chronological slot. Much of Young’s mid/late 70’s output was not released chronologically but it’s still hard to imagine this record taking the place of “Tonight’s The Night” between “On The Beach” (1974) and “Zuma”(1975). Who knows when “Tonight’s The Night” (already delayed from its recording in 1973) would have been released. Fortunately we don’t have to answer these questions and just enjoy this long lost record.
Books: Stephen King, “If It Bleeds”. King present four novellas in his latest release.[2] “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” about a man’s cell phone remaining active after his death could have been a “Night Gallery” episode. “Rat” is an update on “The Monkey’s Paw”. The title story is a sequel to his novel “The Outsider”. “The Life of Chuck” is about Chuck Krantz an accountant who is dying. The story begins when Chuck is 39, during an apocalyptical future, and then works its way back in time to this childhood. King hasn’t lost a step.
Podcast: “Here’s The Thing: Patti Smith”. Alec Baldwin interviewed Smith live for this podcast. I only know her from her early career and reading about some of the books she has written.[3] The interview was a bit of a surprise. Smith is grounded, clear-eyed and grateful for all the things her life has brought. She didn’t want fame and fortune but just to create art that would last. The interview covers a lot of ground from her childhood in Southern New Jersey to her relationship with the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe to getting married and moving to Michigan. She responded to a question from the audience saying that to be an artist you have to be prepared to sacrifice (Bob Dylan made a similar comment recently). Smith also tells a great story about writing the lyrics for “Because The Night” while waiting for her boyfriend to call (“Love is a ring, the telephone”).
[1] Mitchell is also more than a bit paranoid about Google taking over our lives.
[2] Some of King’s best known works that became successful movies were novella’s like “The Body” (“Stand By Me”) and “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” (“The Shawshank Redemption”).
[3] I also saw her open for Neil Young in 2012.