The Merc and I

She almost 'kicked the bucket' that hot, summer day in 1958. My dad had been putting me behind the wheel of his '51 Mercury before he got sick, to practice driving along the lane from the house, past the barn and apple orchard and out to the main road. Many farm kids drove farm equipment before they were old enough for even a daytime-driving-only license. Finally, here I was, fourteen, licensed and excited to be driving the car legal and on my own! I was not yet a mile from home when the car just stopped, right there at the corner by the old pea vinery in Weston. I knew the car had gas. I had paid 25 cents a gallon at the lone pump on main street in front of Frank Olsen's blacksmith shop. Marion, my brother, happened upon me stalled there on the road, the car hot and smoking. Yes, he was about as hot as the Merc, once he sized up the situation. Who knew the car needed oil? No one told me about that!

Mother was as good a driver as anyone, ... from the backseat. She was a tomboy in her youth, handling horses with her dad, and had her own fringed surrey and pony as a young mother but she never learned to drive a car. Now with Daddy gone, she depended on me to be her driver. She had an appointment in Preston one dreary day. A wet winter storm had blown in while she waited for the doctor, making the roads icy. The snow was coming down hard when she and I started home. Only the one lane of highway coming into town had been sanded. I began to inch my way down the hill, leaving Preston, heading South. My only choice was the lane not yet sanded. As the car began to slide off the road, Mother was pushing on the floorboard as hard as she could as though she had the brakes beneath her feet while hitting the dashboard with her hands and yelling, "Whoa, dammit!", and again, "Whoa, dammit!" I was thinking of all those ditches I'd cleaned with my dad and what he had taught me about getting the tractor unstuck from the mud. I gave the car a little gas--not enough to dig the tires in but just enough and then braked a little, repeating this until I got the car to rock a bit. It was enough to shoot us up and out of that snow-filled barrow-pit, across the first lane and onto the second lane of the highway. There was no traffic coming towards me so I crept down the wrong side--the sanded side--the rest of the way down the hill.

Ordinarily, that sweet, ole' Merc was as dependable as could be, though she did have a tendency to flood or vapor lock now and again. On what appeared to be one such occasion, I was driving Mother to her sister's house. As I started to cross the railroad tracks a few miles from the farm, the car died. I tried to restart the ole' girl. No luck. A few seconds of waiting and I tried again. Nothing. I looked off in the distance where the tracks 'round a bend and sure enough, there was a train coming. Amazingly, it never occurred to me to get my mother and myself out of that car and run for our lives. The crossing warning bells announcing the approaching train were going off now. My mother was praying loudly. One more push on the starter button, with the train coming closer, and the motor turned over. I drove off the tracks and we were on our way again, in silence, all the way to Aunt Fern's.

In time, Mother loosened her grip a bit so I could use the car for more than just her means of transportation. I remember what a big deal it seemed to me to be able to drive girl friends somewhere out of town, out of Preston, even, to see a movie. I was the driver going home from an evening activity one night. My friends and I drove, asleep, until I hit the 'thrill hill' just outside of Dayton. The car was catching air when I opened my eyes, hands still on the wheel. I was wide awake for the rest of that drive!

I learned to change a tire on that dear, ole' car and spent lots of time detailing the interior and waxing her faded paint. When I left Weston for the big city, the Merc remained parked in an old, wooden shed at the back of the historically old, Olsen house Mother and I lived in when we left the farm. Home visits were infrequent that first year away but each time I returned, I'd spend some time sitting behind the wheel, listening to the radio. The ole' girl started up every time with the first press of the starter, no matter how long she had been sitting alone in that little shack of a garage. It was just such a night as this when I heard the news of the huge, early '60's Yellowstone Park earthquake.

Another brother used the Mercury for a time while I was in Salt Lake. After I married and needed a car to get to work, I bought her back for a dollar. Her paint was very faded by now. There was almost no sign of the two-toned soft green she had once been. Frank and I were renting the basement apartment in the house of a little, old lady. The rent was very cheap. Her only requests were that we take her garbage cans to the curb each week and, ... that I not park my faded car in front of her house. So I parked the Merc around the corner out of her sight. An elderly gentleman with a thick accent walked his dog each winter morning, as I cleared snow from the car. He would stop to ask, "Do you think she will start today?" He'd smile and give me a thumbs up when the Merc turned over on the first try, every time.

Such a good ole' car, she was. The lessons she taught me as we grew older together, shared some hair-raising moments, fun times, and made memories, became a part of who I am.