Mr. Too-Cool is All That and Then Some

Out walking the dog the other night, I stopped at a corner and watched as a sleek, black corvette with its top down came to a stop across from me. I saw some guy in driver's seat, dark sunglasses obscuring his gaze from me, and decided rather than to cross in front of his leering gaze, I would turn and walk down the sidewalk. He turned the corner very slowly and came following up behind me. "Great," I thought, "Mr.Too-Cool has got to be sure everyone in the neighborhood sees him in his fancy-pants car..." I didn't turn my head as he went by, until a flash of movement caught my eye: two little, pale fleshy arms shot up out of the passenger's seat, childish hands wide open in the minimal wind that passed overhead. The driver looked down at his tow-headed passenger and both laughed aloud. Silly me...

More than that, as the car continued on its slow path up the street and very cautiously around the corner, I was reminded of the many times I was taken along "for a ride" by my older brothers and sisters when they go their new cars - or new used cars, anyway. I remember being the one in the passenger seat, my hands out the window catching air - it seems it was always summer when new cars came into the family. I remember being taken out on back roads and brothers driving way faster than I'm sure Mom and Dad would have liked to have known about, but at the same time, they must have known about. Isn't this every new teenage car owner's rite of passage?

One road in particular and one ride I will never forget (until I'm at least 50...) was when my brother Brian had his orange Chevy Nova - had to be in the 70s - with its version of mag wheels on the back. We went down a road we called "Rollercoaster Road," and at speeds somewhere around seventy-ish, I'm pretty sure we caught some air more than once. What a blast it was to sit in the back seat of that car and go up and down, up and down, the rock'n'roll blaring out the speakers, the wind whipping my hair around my face, dusk settling into the woods around us, my stomach queezy and tingling from the repeated drop in gravity, and just how cool it was to be hanging out with my brothers who talked by yelling at one another and laughed open mouthed in the front seat. I felt safe and free, wild and daring in that moment, and I felt so much like I belonged. So much like I was someone, alive and in the moment. Now a memory long etched in my feelings of joy and comfort.

I watched that Corvette turn the corner and out of sight, and I thought of the guy driving the car and nodded with an appreciative smile: He really is Mr. Too-Cool.