Rambler is the seventh of one hundred self portraits I planned to do when I came to New York. I have a very long way to go. The project was meant to help me figure out what I look like. The rules, somewhat simple, a painting of me arrived at by looking in a mirror, from my thought, a photo, or a projection of a photo. This painting is from a photo my dad took of me with my new car. It is nineteen seventy-six. We are out in the driveway in front of the old army barracks duplex where Heather and I lived, on Hearn Avenue in Santa Rosa, California.
Mom and Dad came to visit us, something they did rarely. Dad was looking for a better deal on a truck in Santa Rosa, ninety miles north of our family home in Palo Alto. After some months looking all over the Greater Bay Area, Dad found his truck, a big old Chevrolet that could pull the boat he planned to and did get for Mom, her Aurora. What I know about trucks is it was a deep reddish brown with white and very hunkin' with a matching Camper top to protect all the gear they would take on jaunts during this honeymoon period of their life, the girls having finally all moved out.
My dad was a Car Boy. This truck, dad's last, was Chebby, named in his best cholo swaggering accent, though he said it aloud with a sheepish grin. He had "Chebby" engraved on his car key fob. He loved all his cars and attended to their insides carefully. He had his girls spend their Saturday afternoons detailing to his satisfaction as long as we lived in his house. Dad only bought Chevies, truly believing they were the best that could be had. Occasionally our family also had a Rambler or something foreign, given to us by Mom's family, who apparently didn't know any better.
The first memory I have of my Dad was as a four year old, watching him pull up to the sidewalk outside our door on a late sunny morning in Fresno. I was watching out the window, not for anything, just because I liked to. Quite to my surprise, my dad drove up to the curb and parked right at the end of the walkway leading to the side door, the one we used as our household door, in our brand new fifty-five, two-toned turquoise blue and white Chevy. I was so surprised and excited. Daddy coming home, probably for lunch, and nobody knew but me. With a thrill and incredible and untypical gumption, I dashed from the couch where I was kneeling, threw wide open the screen door and feeling like a girl in a movie, I ran down the walkway shouting with delight Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. My little arms spread wide to embrace his legs, I grabbed around them and squeezed with joy, looking up, with my beaming little face to find, with horror that the face I looked into did not belong to my daddy. Oh, a nasty trick. I crumbled, shocked and confused, embarrassed and mad that whoever this was, this man who, like my dad was tall with black hair and blue eyes, brown and handsome, he didn't stop me until I'd gone all the way down the sidewalk to his legs, letting me go through the whole wild hearted movie, without letting me know he wasn't my dad. Apologizing, I gathered my pieces together, red-faced and ashamed I made my spinning way quickly back into the house, hoping no one had seen me and my big mistake, telling no one for a really long time. I thought the man had intentionally come to my house and keeping quiet about my mistaken identity, had a mean trick on me, a thought I would have too often in the following years.
The story of this blue Rambler is a longer and better one. I'm leaning there on my fifty-nine rambler, a car I loved to distraction, the only one that ever brought out the Car Boy in me. I first eyed her on the street in downtown Santa Rosa with a For Sale sign in the back window. I thought about it for weeks, really falling for the deep blue rounded fenders and forehead. I went by her often. After a while I thought really I just needed to see her. I hated the idea of actually talking with anyone about the car and having to let go of the little money I had. An obsession with having that dear old car took me over. I was in love. Weeks after I first spotted the car, I finally got up the courage to go see about the it. Before leaving home I folded the long-saved cash into my pocket. I hopped on my bike and rode over to make the inquiry. She wasn't parked in her old spot. Clearly, I'd thought too long and missed my chance. Downhearted I went home. Months limped along. I passed her spot sadly, figuring I couldn't have afforded the two-hundred and fifty dollars anyway. I would save the money I'd scrimped from bus rides and cheaper meals for some emergency that would surely find me. One day, passing her old empty spot on E Street, I spotted her there, sitting like the old days, wearing the same sign. I instantly fell for her deep blue curves all over again. I had to have her, determined, I didn't wait a day. That evening at dark, I went with my friend Michael, who lived just around the corner and down the block, back to E Street. We checked out the engine and tires by flashlight and talked with the fellow who was giving her up. After test driving her, I fell really hard for the way she handled. Any bump in the road would cause a heavy loping response, reverberating like molasses ocean waves, a feeling that gave my whole body a thrill. I just had to have her. I handed over my money, signed some papers and she was mine, the first car I ever bought.
I tell you, I was puffed up with pride like any good pachuco. I took her home and made plans for seat covers and something to cover the holes that opened to a great view of the road below. I went shopping for fabric that would look great with her beautiful blue, finding a floral pattern that also suited my regard for the healing properties of flowers, hoping it would lead to a long life. I covered the floor and dashboard with Astroturf, just the proper garden touch and pretty silly, which I was quite in the mood for. I had myself one heck of a great car. I got to dressing in matching outfits as often as possible for fun. On the days I clashed, you'd find me sitting pretty low in the seat, disgusted with myself.
This Rambler was a great friend to me. She got me through the last few years of college, sparing me the long, lonely bike rides home in the dark of late night. Heather and I gave up our weekly tottering bicycle rides, baskets filled to our height with laundry. We showed up in all our glorious seventies style. The days of rain or heat drenched walks the mile or so to the bus stop to go visit grandma in Palo Alto were behind us. We lolled and lazed our way down there in our sweet blue car and returned satisfied in the dark of a Sunday night, Heather soothed to a comfortable nap, me entertained and kept awake by tunes and long mystery stories on the radio. Oh, we just kept on loving that car for some good years. When I graduated college in nineteen seventy-nine, she took me to Joshua Tree desert for a walk-about. She carried me there safely on a midnight ride under the full moon across miles of jack-rabbit swarmed roads with not a one tread on. She carried me and my meager supplies for a week alone in the desert, offering me the comfort of escape should it all prove as crazy as the folks who disapproved thought. She offered me shade on my first hot desert day. And this true blue friend held my place one long day I took lost in the desert. What deeper waves of comfort she offered with her good old beauty blue, her familiar curves waving to me through the desert heat, beckoning me back to my camp home, assuring me I was lost no more. When I'd gathered all the desert stories I needed, she hauled us north back over the Grapevine, an infamous section of Interstate 5 that travels over the 4,144 foot Tejon Pass through the Tehachapi Mountains northwest of Los Angeles, that has challenged many an engine. She brought me safely back home to Heather in Palo Alto and Sonoma County. One afternoon, driving to the Napa Valley, bringing adventure stories to my friends over the hill, huge puffs of white clouds began filling the sky behind her. Not a good sign I knew. She had a cracked engine block and no replacements were to be found. I lost my dear car that very day. She had carried me through a tough and sweet part of my life and wouldn't be there for the next. I took her off to a junk yard one bleak rainy day. You bet I cried.
So, this little painting, no particular reason I could tell, but I love it. Could be it's the lipstick and orange hair or the idea that I could ever have struck such a classic pose or worn green socks outside on the dirty gravel driveway. Or maybe it's because my dad took the picture at a time when I could say we were friends and in a moment that we were both being cholo Car Boys. Maybe that love for the curvy blue car just doesn't end.
Ruth Parson
