Automobile of Memory

This month marks my anniversary in the magazine. A year ‘Down from the Hill’ and I feel like I’ve unlearning all that the good Jesuits have hammered into my head. I’ve restructured priorities, been severely humbled, and though crankier, have gained a better appreciation for others’ ideas — yes, less of my old bigot self. Not to mention that my dates are off, one month off to be exact. Tell me you’ll meet me on the 15^th of August and I’ll pause for a while to determine if it’s September already. But I’ve kept appointments much better that way.

Remembering has become easier since I’ve been associating months with cars - our cover cars in particular. Forgive me, then, for calling September Porsche and October BMW, or January Ferrari. August last year was a Honda Jazz — prophetic, you could say.

It’s the kind of classical conditioning only a car nut could understand. Memories are linked to senses, as anyone’s is, but sensations that normally wouldn’t trigger a nostalgic response from others. A flower’s scent, or the feel of a blanket would have no bearing for me. But a frosty windshield, scent of leather, or even the rebound of a suspension arm would hark to a more exciting episode. Only a car nut, after all, would remember the shade, interior, engine and tire of the car with which he fetched the girl that was to be his wife. Vivid, still, in his mind, is the soggy concrete, creaking wipers and lethargic grip of that day. And in wed locked days, he will feel her wrath for keeping a detrimental, polluting, drain-on-family-income-rust-bucket. But that to him will serve as a reminder of that fateful day, more accurate than any current 8 megapixel camera could capture.

I still pine for our old ’89 Lancer GLX (no longer in our possession) whose loosened mechanicals and heavy steering would cause me to reminisce those rebellious exploits of reckless youth. A neighing cold start still reminds me of the ’79 Dodge Colt that rapidly ferried me to Greenhills’ once famous Eskimo Pie. Old cars, like old clothes, are eventually tossed away at one point or another. A steering wheel or an old plate often all that remain of those faithful vessels of memory.

I’m thankful though for period movies and old photographs, that refresh blurred visions of those old cars, and consequently, those good old memories.