Sleepless in Seattle – Part 1 (from Not Quite the Same)

The 1968 Buick Skylark was a sweet ride.

             My daddy always bought either a Chevrolet from Mr. Dickey at his dealership in Anderson, Texas, or a Ford from Virgil Cook in Shiro. My granddaddy always purchased Fords from Mr. Cook because he was one of the best customers in Pa’s barbershop. My Uncle Marion, my mother’s oldest brother who lived with us in my grandmother’s house, faithfully bought Studebakers from my Uncle Floyd Hiney at the Mosehart & Keller dealership in Houston. Nobody in my family ever owned a Buick.

            When I was in college, daddy bought me an old Nash Rambler that had seen better days. It was a creamy beige four-door sedan that later became famous as the forerunner of other compact models. The most adventuresome feature of my car was its stick-shift transmission. That was exciting because Austin was a city of many steep hills, and I held my breath when a stoplight changed to red at the top of one of them.

            One Saturday morning I was on my way to Richards to visit my grandparents and got stuck on the pinnacle of a steep horizontal incline at a red light just beyond Memorial Stadium. I pushed in the clutch and gunned the accelerator. Unfortunately, I hadn’t put the car in first gear. It was in neutral. I rolled backwards into the car behind me. The older female driver was in her bright shiny new Cadillac. She got out of her car and berated reckless UT students in general, and me in particular. Although the damage to either vehicle was nonexistent, I never lost the feeling that danger lurked whenever I saw green lights turn yellow.

            My position with the firm of Arthur Andersen & Company in Houston following my graduation from college definitely required new wheels. As soon as I got my first paycheck, I took the initial step towards supporting the American economy by borrowing money to buy a new car. I settled on the Buick because I felt it was a move up from the Fords and Chevrolets of my family. I was upwardly mobile.

             I liked the Skylark for its sporty two-door coupe look. I chose a deep blue color with a white hard top. Automatic transmission. It was a great car, and it was only ninety-eight dollars monthly. I applied for a new Exxon credit card to make sure I never ran out of gas. I joined the other Baby Boomers who believed in the 1960s that postponing purchases due to lack of cash was folly.

            When my friend Adrian Ferrell and I decided in 1968 to move to Seattle by looking at the farthest place from our apartments in Houston on a map of the United States, I told her we could take my car. It had low mileage and looked super fine. We saw no reason to drive two. The problem with a two-door coupe was that it didn’t have tons of room in the back seat or in the trunk. Since all my worldly possessions consisted of a small portable color television set, record player, a few textbooks and clothes, there was plenty of space for Adrian’s belongings. At twenty-two years of age, neither of us had had time to accumulate much.

            My family was aghast at this turn of events. It was the first time, to their knowledge, that I had done anything so totally unexpected and reckless. My mother and dad maintained their composure better than my grandparents in the early stages of my revelations. My dad philosophized that he had been on his own in England at my age. Of course, there had been a world war to fight. So, maybe that wasn’t the best comparison.

            My grandmother, Ma, on my daddy’s side, voiced everyone’s questions that they were reluctant to ask. Was I crazy? Had any of our people ever lived in Seattle, Washington? Did I know one person in that city? What would I do for work? What would I do for a place to live? Who was Adrian Ferrell? Were any of her people in Seattle, Washington? Did I know that I was breaking her heart by moving so far away from home? After all, she didn’t have that many years left. And on and on. She was not happy.

            When I said goodbye to my mom and dad on that gorgeous Texas day in September 1968, my mother wept. I hugged her and tried to reassure her that everything would be okay. She was inconsolable.

            My dad reminded me that roads ran both ways and I could come home if I was disappointed with life in the Pacific Northwest. I hugged him, too, and said I would call them when I could. He magnanimously told me to feel free to call collect.

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The journey begun that day in September 1968 was about much more than a change in geography 3,000 miles from my weeping mother on that driveway in Rosenberg, Texas. I was looking for freedom to discover, to accept, possibly to embrace the secret desires of my heart. I was looking for love and, if I had to leave my family to find it, well that was the price I had to pay. Had I fully grasped the magnitude of the price I would pay for my choice over the next fifty years, I’m not sure I would have driven away in the Buick Skylark, but hormones were raging; they were my personal call of the wild. Get me outta here, Percy.

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To be continued. Please stay tuned.