"Suburban"ites

My son has his learner's permit, and he's a better driver than I am. He sometimes forgets to check his speed, but he is more cautious and less likely to fly into road rage than his old man. Speaking of which, my cell phone died this week, and we went to Wally World to get me a new one. He was checking out the Hot Wheels aisle while I looked at the Tracfones, and when he walked over to join me, he wasn't sure where I was. I'd shaved off my light brown hair that morning and was left with the gray stubble shorter than my beard--quite shocking for everyone around me. My boy's first words to me that day were, "Why are you bald?"

At any rate, as he walked toward the electronics section at WW, he saw a figure that resembled me: Five feet, nine inches tall, wearing a trucker's cap, pear-shaped. "There's Dad." But then he saw the gray hair under the cap and thought, "That's not Dad. That's an old man!" A moment later, "Oh! That IS Dad!" At least, that's how he related it to me.

He helped me pick out a fifty-dollar phone and protective case and drove me home. He talked about cars. I tried to listen. At some point, I spoke about my family's 1974 Chevy Suburban. "That thing had no power anything." He didn't seem impressed. "You know? No power steering. No power brakes. No power windows. It had a manual transmission, three on the tree. My mother drove that. Your aunts drove that!"

"Why didn't you drive it, Dad?"

"I was too young. It rusted out before I was old enough to drive."

"Huh."

"The gears would get stuck all the time, too. Then, one of us would have to get out, pop the hood, and use the tire iron to jiggle the link to move the gears. Such fun. The predicaments we got in sometimes!"

"Such as?"

"Well, you know how I've told you that Grandma never swore or even used minced oaths, right? (https://shopping-feedback.today/families/minced-oh-ths) There was a day when I thought she was going to. She was driving the Beast with your Uncle Dan, me, and one or two of our sisters in downtown Bangor on a summer day. We were on Hammond Street hill, waiting for the light to turn green so we could continue down past the police station and courthouse. Suddenly, we felt a jolt and knew we'd been rear-ended."

"What?" he said.

"The next thing we knew, the driver appeared at Mom's window and demanded to see her registration and insurance information. He said to her, 'You backed up and hit me!'"

"Seriously?" my son was duly shocked.

"Seriously. Grandma said to him, 'I did not back up and hit you. You hit us.' The guy insisted that she backed up the Beast and hit him, and your Uncle Dan was getting ready to leave the car to put the man in his place when your Grandma said to him, 'Okay, let's get the police over here. The station is right there.' She pointed up Court Street five hundred feet. 'You can explain to them how I managed to back up this manual transmission Suburban to hit your car when you're intoxicated and hit my car instead.'"

"Talk about a mic drop!" I added.

"No kidding! What did the guy do?" my son asked.

"He grumbled and mumbled something unpleasant. My Mom told him to get back in his car, or she'd get the police herself. When he left us alone, we went on our way. We kids were joking about him for saying we backed up the hill into him, but Mom wouldn't have it. 'He's lost, kids. There's no need to make fun of him for that. Yes, he was being ridiculous, but that's what alcohol will do to a person.'"

"She was always a better person than we were. We kept making fun of the guy for what he said, but we ensured she wasn't around when we did it."

"Grandma sounds like a good person. I wish I could've met her."

"She would've loved you, son. I wish you could've met her, too. Of course, if she were alive, I wouldn't be able to share these funny stories about her because she'd be so embarrassed! Still, she was a wonderful mom and grandma and loved laughing. That poor woman drove so many awful cars during my upbringing, but she'll always be known for that brown Suburban with the split rear doors and rotted-out floors."