Driving in a Car, Going Nowhere

Cleaning the '69 International

My recent forays into past memories ended with me writing a poem about some of the cars and trucks we have owned.

They were mostly junk because we were poor. And because they were junk, we struggled to keep them running. Sometimes we walked miles to buy parts. 

Yet these inanimate objects that caused so much trouble have a special place in my heart. Not because of their material worth, but because my memory of them is intricately tied to so many other wonderful memories.

'63 Buick

Blue Audi

The Red Truck and Other Autos 

For a hundred dollars we bought the first

car we could really call ‘ours’

A sweet blue Audi, the color of a Kansas sky,

With problems—But you made it run

Until we gave it up, or it gave up

I don’t remember.

Then a Volvo, a hazy sort of blue,

how you loved it, even when we

were forced to walk miles and miles for parts

for a car with springs for seats.

Then a '69 International

red pickup truck I could never really drive,

although maybe in an emergency,

but it took us halfway across the country

from Kansas to Washington, Washington to

Kansas, Kansas to Washington, and on

to Tennessee where we sold it, but never got paid.

We drove from Oklahoma to repossess it,

Baby three along for the ride. What a thrill, to

steal what was rightfully ours.

We kept her for years, rusting and rotting away.

I cried the day the backwoods boys bought her and

drove her croaking and groaning down the road—

A fading piece of our history, bound in

rubber and steel.

Then there was the ’63 Buick Wildcat

That floated over highways, a behemoth

carrying kids and groceries

though her engine begged for more.

A sexy beast, rolling with curves, but

no air conditioning, so the black vinyl seats became

sweaty and slick in the heat of summer,

just a tease before changing to sheets of ice for

winter rides.

I keep thinking of the red pickup, the ’69 International,

how we rode through California, over the desert mountains,

in the dead of night. It was so dark, the stars so numerous, our

first baby, a daughter, so small. The road so very lonely. We

spiraled up and up those mountains, ever up, ever higher,

so high and lost in the dark night, split only by starlight,

I wondered if we would ever come back down again.
                                                                        Jeanice Eagan Davis © 2012

'69 International Pickup