After nearly forty years of [im]patient waiting, I took delivery yesterday of a 1973 Triumph TR6. The cost is unimportant. Let it go.
Others may disagree, but I think this is one helluva way to spend my kids’ inheritance…
Today presented a perfect forecast: sunny, high 60’s, low humidity…sort of like Oz. Naturally, I got up early and started creating a list of absolutely, must-be-done-today errands. I mean, how does someone live without at least two spare reels of waxed mint dental floss? My supply was down to but one. A trip to the local drugstore was imperative.
First things first, of course. The car had been shipped with its hardtop in situ and I had to remove it and replace it with the dashing and debonair soft-top (see: convertible); lesson learned: I never want a job as a soft-top installer. After only two hours (and at least as many “opportunities” to learn something new), I was ready to crank her over and head out into civilization (well, as close as we get here in Tallahassee).
- Go Dog, GO!
The previous owner told me to give her plenty of choke when starting in cold weather (since I started at first [moon]light, it was still pretty early with temps in the 30’s), so I did, and she did, and it was good.
I couldn’t get the convertible top to stretch enough to actually put it up, so I pulled the car out into the sun. Well, I would have if it were up. While waiting for what fancy-pants meteorologists refer to as “sunrise,” I decided to just put the top down and cover it with the nifty, color-matching doo dah which snapped in place and made the whole package all the more rakish. Stylin’ I was. While I was in a snappy mood, I snapped a few pictures and emailed them to my brother (see: um…nanny, nanny, boo boo, bro) and cousin (Id.) and added “driving gloves with holes in the knuckles” to my errand list.
Off I went, intending to run my errands and return home, but the car started to exert some kind of influence over itself, turning this way and that until we ended up, finally, at the house of a fellow I work with (as luck would have it, he was home). I mean, since we were there, I had to sort of “show” him the car, right? After the appropriate “oohs” and “ahhs,” I left, hoping desperately that CVS had my brand of dental floss on sale (you do NOT buy generic when it comes to dental floss).
The darn car turned left instead of right and practically drove itself to the house of some other friends (as luck would have it, they were arriving just as I pulled in). I began to wonder if I’d purchased a lemon; there was something decidedly off-putting about this car’s steering system. My friend showed the appropriate manly interest in the new acquisition (he has an S2000); his wife, not so much. Alas, you can’t have everything. I could see he felt awkward owing to his wife’s rather poignant and public shunning and thoughtfully offered to drive the car to make amends. Naturally, I gave him some insightful pointers which I’d gleaned over the many minutes of driving that particular automobile; he flipped me off, and roared into the nether reaches, never to be seen again. Ok, not really. He came back in about 20 minutes and there was much rejoicing (especially since he didn’t have to call a tow, but I didn’t mention that part).
I guess the car had had enough socializing (as luck would have it, most of my friends wouldn’t have been home anyway) and we headed off, in treasure hunt fashion, to gather the list of goodies on my errand list (I’d added a few “automotive-sounding” items to the list, just in case I met some chick while driving around in a decidedly striking sports car sporting only a couple rolls of dental floss; then again, good oral hygiene is oft greatly appreciated by the gals…especially around here where teeth seem to be at a premium). I scampered to Sears for tools (I’d been counseled, when I posted on the TR6 Owner’s forum an inquiry about what to carry for tools/spares, to be sure I always had with me: a cell phone, a towing plan, and a beverage opener), O’Reilly’s Auto Parts for oil and a chamois (they didn’t carry the Sham-Wow or that baby would be in the boot this very instant), and CVS (I passed on the dental floss; it wasn’t on sale..see: Scottish). Mission accomplished, I turned for home. Or so I thought (ominous foreshadowing for those of you paying attention).
As many of you know, I live in a veritable swamp. In the boonies. Nowheresville[tonburg]. Kaczynski Kabin. The best part of this bucolic (that sounds better than “gator-laden, snake-infested, toothless redneck dwellin’”) locale is that you can only get to it on back roads, the speed limits of which are rarely a thing to be mentioned or observed in any company; polite, police, or otherwise. I zoomed my way homeward.
At a critical juncture in my journey, I approached a left turn which would take me directly to ye olde kabin in the swamp (technically, the third such structure as you may recall, the previous two having sunk into the ooze, the second of which [the unfortunately named “Kaczynski Kastle”] having been engulfed in a mighty conflagration which, to this day, folks in these parts still talk about and, any knowledge about which Rhubarb and his cousin Cletus, deny). No homestead; instead, the dang car just kept going, wending its way through a breathtaking canopied wonderland of deciduous nature. I turned on my cell phone’s GPS to see if the speedometer was accurate (it wasn’t…but I realized the speed was just about always double the RPMs shown on the tachometer in fourth gear; how damn handy was that?).
Approaching another critical turn in my [now] Tadventure, I scanned the many masculine gauges on the testosterone-inducing British sports car dashboard and mumbled aloud how prescient I’d been, filling the tank first thing in the morning. Sure enough, as luck would have it, that cranky non-yankee vehicle turned east, away from the friendly konfines of Kaczynski Kabin. I was getting hungry.
About 20 miles to the east lies the historic little village of Monticello (no, not that one…this one is historic because one of the United States Marines who hoisted the flag on Iwo Jima hailed from there…that’s pretty damn historic to me). I tried, without success, to pull over at various times, but by the time I spotted a suitable spot, I was past it with no chance to brake in time (let’s just say the tach was “up there”; you can do the math on the speed). By the time I got to the next little town (of no known repute other than someone from there had once left town to seek her fortune working at Wal-Mart in the “big city” (Perry); her subsequent class action suit, alleging discrimination against employees who wore comfortable pumps, was denied by the United States Supreme Court; she slunk back to Greenville[fieldtonburg], none the worse for wear, but sporting a rather dashing blue vest that, to this day, she wears to church each Sunday where she greets each congregant, in a single breath, with a heartfelt, “Hi! Welcome to The Fourteenth Adventist Church of Our Heavenly Wafer!” (services are held in a former bakery); granted, it doesn’t have the same ring to it as her previous script, but she delivers it with grace, aplomb, and a spirit which can only come from divine baking). But I digress.
I’d finally had enough of this car’s aberrant directional ineptitude and, gathering about me my wits and a threat to “pull this thing over and fill you with regular grade petrol if you don’t turn around!” [you have to say “petrol”…it’s a British car, you know], I got the vehicle (until recently unnamed, but now, thanks to my sister [no slouch in antique car desiring biz], HE has been named “P.D.” as in Eastman, as in: “Go Dog, Go!” [quite possibly, the tome de rigueur in the history of automobiles and insights to the human psyche, not to mention haberdashery]).
So, P.D. and your intrepid reporter/author/”driver,” wind blowing through my hair (well, technically, it could have been) headed back to the Kabin, and tucked in until the ‘morrow when we shall once again take to a road which leads hopefully to the golf course, as I have a tee time just after tea time.
My God, I’d forgotten just how fun this is!
[Oh, the car was marvy, inflicted with the usual creaks and groans anyone approaching the age of 40 might expect; I drove it like I stole it, and it never complained.]
