Measure of a Man: Motors, Ponies, Mufflers and More
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009The men in my life are diverse, so when trying to size them up I use their relationships with cars as a path to help me understand them fuller.
My father is outdoorsy – a geologist by profession, although now retired. Chip a rock here. Gather a fossil there. He is a man’s man, but has never shown any affection for machinery. Although raised to be a gentleman, engines and gears had a way of bringing out the inner savage. Some of my earliest memories involve my dad bent over some motor, cursing out the Industrial Age.
Dad would change tires on our Volkswagen camper vans when required, but would never have been one to fawn over chrome grill work or aftermarket center caps. He might pour some H2O in the radiator or dab Rust-oleum on rusted spots on our van, but scrubbing up headlamps with toothbrushes or running Q-Tips around dashboard knobs were not affairs that happened in our garage.
My father-in-law, on the other hand, is a car man all the way. He knows make, model and year of everything that’s likely ever traveled the Pennsylvania turnpike. Scrubbing whitewalls or squaring a 1962 Chevy at the Antique Car Club show is his idea of a well-spent Sunday.
Growing up in rural northern Pennsylvania, he speedily graduated from teething ring to pliers and pitchfork. Farm boys acquired the ABCs of mechanics along with animal husbandry at an early age. The affinity with engines and wheels and all the associated gizmos stuck, although fondness for animals did not. He left the farm to go to college and never looked back.
My husband is a teacher, just like his father and my father, but that is where their similarities end. He doesn’t meticulously clean his cars, collect rocks, or go camping. He likes to spend Saturdays enjoy coffee at a local Starbuck, marking papers, and catching up with friends on Facebook.
He puts gas in the car, but would be more inclined to keep his American Racing center caps as paperweights on his desk, than as a cool way to floss his ride. Not that he has anything against someone who toils over their center caps. He vacuums his vehicle bi-annually, but is content to ride about town with “Wash me!” scribbled above his rusty bumper for a year at a time.
My daughter’s beau is a juiced up version of my father-in-law. (I think they would bond quickly if sent together on an errand to a car parts store.) The Boyfriend got a aftermarket exhaust kit for Christmas and is pleased now that his car’s exhaust rumbles deeply, letting everybody know he has arrived. “I can hear him coming a mile away,” my daughter smiles, plainly in the throes of young love.
Yes, men and their relationships with automobiles are complex. Sometimes their relationships reflect an expression of a man’s masculinity, while others treat vehicles as a foe – a needed nuisance to conquer or at least endure.
Some men give their cars names and some curse them. Some give their cars plenty of TLC and others demand bragging rights because their car or truck is beat up or has the most mileage. Car stories are exchanged over beers, like war stories used to be shared at the campfire.
Why else is the auto industry capable of selling billions of dollars of chrome, mag wheels, seat covers, backup detectors, window tint, fancy headlights, dash accessories and aftermarket center caps, tailpipes, hoods, car alarms and decals?
Whether the vehicle in the driveway is fuel for swearing or cooing, I’m apt to think there’s some kind of mechanised mojo in there – something reminiscent to “If you build it, he will come.”
