60 Chevy Biscayne, Blue.
The Biscayne and Dad
May 17th, 2011
Today I am commemorating my Dad. He died 30 years ago today, on May 17th, 1981. His name was Darwin but they called him Willie. Dad tried to show me how to care for what mattered (family, home, cars, lawnmowers, tools, toasters, not to drink whiskey and make candles at the same time, etc.); Dad also showed me how to play poker, how to swear at politicians on TV and how to laugh at fools. When he died, it seemed he’d lived a long life but he was just 48. I know how young that is today.
Dad joined the army when he was 15 years old, something that was not so unusual at that time. The boys went to where they could find work early. I learned from my Uncle years later that the family had lost their dairy farm during the depression; lost the lease on the land they’d had for two generations. After, the family moved into town, fitting 9 into a one bedroom house that had belonged to an Aunt.
I was sent several photos of the family at a carnival, my Uncle explained that part of the year Granddad Lyall got work selling shoes at JC Penny, the other part of the year he worked as a Carnie taking care of the horses and ponies with the Jay Gould Circus, the boys went along to help in the summers. It was only after getting this extended history that I understood how it could be a normal thing for my Dad to sneak into the Army at the age of 15. But, he went back home when he could. I have a photo of Dad at the age of 17, looking like James Dean, posing with his Grandmother, and a bulldog which must have been the family pet.
At 35, Dad had done his 20 years in the Army. Luckily for me I was only 6 and he, being medically retired, was able to stay home after that. So, as things were, it was Dad who got me going in the morning, who was there during the days when Mom was at work. Being retired at 35 and being told he wouldn’t live long, he got as much living in as was possible in those 13 years. He bought a motorcycle, and kept the family Buick finely tuned. He built a trailer, so he could pull the motorcycle with the Buick and take us all along.
Dad was truly hip, but also protective and traditional when it came to family and friends. I think of him on his motorcycle, wearing his black leather jacket proudly, or at a party, advising my older sister’s friends on life’s decisions. He was the one people came to for heart felt ‘moral’ advise. I put the word moral in single quotes because Dad was an atheist of sorts, he accepted when you died you died, that was all, nothing good or bad about it after; what mattered to him was how you lived. To live with integrity meant sharing what you had, being straight out honest, and caring for the relationships you depended on here and now. He had a clear sense of right and wrong according to those values. Also, I’ve heard stories from my Uncle and my sister that he would knock a man out with one punch if they said or did some stupid-assed-thing that went against those values.
Dad was committed to proving he was not a chauvinist, he showed me how to ride motor bike right along with my brother, though I admit I didn’t like falling in gravel out on Pipeline Road and having that exhaust pipe cook the skin off my leg. After that, on extended family camping trips, I rode on the back where I was ‘safe’ behind my older sisters crazed hippie vet friends riding half hazard along old creek trails.
I gave my Dad more grief than my brother but he gave my brother less grief than me. It’s hard not to give your father grief when you’re a teenage girl in the later 70s. My brother found tennis and oil paints, but I found you could buy a bag of naturally grown pot for 10 bucks and have money left over from your allowance to gas up a 60 Chevy Biscayne and buy a ticket to see George Thorogood too.
The 60 Chevy Biscayne had wings and was not hip at that time (1978 – 79) when people were driving Camaros and flashing stupid attire inspired by Disco. I was happy wearing retro overalls, and happy my Dad bought me that Biscayne with wings for $600 – really as punishment - after crashing my first used car (a silly yellow 1970 Toyota Corolla) at the bottom of an icy hill after leaving a party hosted by this great bluegrass bebop band called the Fat City Boys. ( imagine harp, acoustic strings, and lyrics like this: “melt down, melt down, mama melt down on me / you know I want to feel your radi-o-activity / and when you see me glowing in the starry night above / baby you know I feel your nuclear powered love”). I had a crush on the lead singer and harp player of the Fat City Boys, Mike, who reminded me of Neil Young and introduced me to the poems of Leonard Cohen. I appreciated the irony of those lyrics. Our Governor Dixy Lee Ray had been pushing Nuke Plants at the time, before becoming the first female Governor of WA State, Dixy Lee was a Nixon Appointee to the Atomic Energy Commission.
OK, I’m diverging, enough about Dixy and Nukes and back to Dad and the Biscayne.
There’s one mistake Dad made with me that I haven’t quite forgiven him over, and that was selling the Biscayne. When I was 17 at the end of that school year, we’d gotten in some argument; I’m not sure what it was about now, probably spurred by the fact Dad had gotten a letter from the school and learned I’d been forging his name to absentee notes for 48 days of the spring quarter so I could hang out at the park smoking $10-a-bag naturally grown pot and singing tunes by the Fat City Boys.
This argument led to me announcing I was moving out of the house, it was the ultimate punishment; I had the power, I’d won. (Of course, I know now, I’d broken his heart by doing so, but I can’t take that back.) When I moved back home after that summer, the Biscayne was gone. It was the ultimate punishment; he had the power, he’d won. Dad announced he’d sold the Biscayne, but to a low-income family that needed a dependable car. (Of course, he probably knew he’d broken my heart by doing so, but he couldn’t take it back).
Fortunately that summer away had me realize a few things. Dad wanted me to go to college on his GI bill, he’d not had the chance to go to college and he was proud that his kids would be able to. I was ‘screwing it up’, I got it. I signed up for summer school classes and got myself there on the bus; once my senior year came I took accelerated classes. Instead of getting letters form the school saying I’d not been attending Dad found letters saying I’d made honor roll. And so, I graduated from high school on time and Dad bought me another used car, a Ford Maverick with a slant six engine. I started at the community college the next year and Dad died that spring, on May 17th. He was just 48.
I know how young that is today.
I transferred down here to Evergreen in 1983 and that spring I threw a rod right through the slant six engine of the Maverick. There between Tacoma and Olympia on I-5, I opened the hood and saw a hole the size of a fist right through the engine. I had forgotten to regularly check and change the oil and it ran bone dry. The importance of checking and changing the oil was something my Dad always stressed, but (maybe because he really was a chauvinist) it was also something he ended up doing for me.
I think today in honor of my Dad, I’ll go have my oil changed. I’m driving a 1994 Taurus that I bought for $800 (with my earned income tax credit money) from a neighbor who always took care of it. I know they were happy to sell the car to a low income family who needed a dependable car.
I am grateful.
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Thoughts after this writing:
An adult first cares for a child with the hope that the child will be safe in the world and feel secure enough to explore and create. When the child begins to venture into the world, the adult shows them how to care for the things that will sustain them. I think that is a difficult transition to make for a parent , from being a protective caregiver to instead giving the older child the information and skills they need to care for themselves as autonomous individuals.
P.S. I saw a 60 Chevy Biscayne, blue, same color as mine was, driving down 4th Ave. last year.
I wonder.
Silent No Longer - From Dan Leahy
From Dan Leahy, March 3, 2011 SILENT NO LONGER Israel bombs Gaza for twenty-four days Inaugurating Obama’s silence as a policy phase. Tunisians rebel Who Cares for that state? Ben Ali lives well in his Saudi estate. Egyptians rebel Mubarak kills hundreds, yet silence is golden Can’t we get back to what’s normal? After all, we’re beholden. Libyans rebel Gadaffi on the slaughter but now silence is broken Violence, says Obama, the Afghan assassin, is an unacceptable notion. Aircraft carrier with 400 marines War ships through the Suez No fly assault is on the table The military machine’s oil is now unstable! Freeze Gadaffi’s assets. What about Goldman Sachs? At least the Egyptians Knew who to attack. Americans resist as Obama dismantles our past with JP Morgan in Chief this nation won’t last. Bill Gates wants our pensions Governor Walker our rights Bankers take our homes, As Obama takes the mic. The Ds and Rs both beyond repair There even less relevant than the Wafd over there. Collective Giving won’t work They want it all, don’t you know. A little bit each time It’s the Liberals’ mojo. Congress gives bankers our funds David Koch our fresh air. They want us to live quiet lives of despair. “Game Over” is the sign It’s true even here. There is no bargain to be made Let’s have regime change, no fear. Can we imagine A democratic state. One where the people Get what they make. We keep conferencing with workshops, panels and speakers a dead-end technology with the people in bleachers. There’s no way around it The space must be open With all the uncertainty of a circle unbroken. Sometimes I wonder If that was Tahrir The youth opened a space Where people lost fear. They formed a community Where free thought could take place where demands were formed and solidarity embraced. It was stronger than violence It shocked ever those who tortured and beat those kids they opposed. I remember Seattle where kids saw a space that opened a door to the Ministerial race. It got slammed shut by cops, the state and its gas but the neo-liberal agenda began to breath its last gasp. The institutions are closed the relief valves shut tight but that makes it easy to see the space that’s in sight. I wonder how many Tahrirs we could construct over time to expose the bankruptcy of the bankers’ last crime. We all know they took it But we do want it back A future with meaning for our kids and their pack. SILENT NO LONGER Israel bombs Gaza for twenty-four days Inaugurating Obama’s silence as a policy phase. Tunisians rebel Who Cares for that state? Ben Ali lives well in his Saudi estate. Egyptians rebel Mubarak kills hundreds, yet silence is golden Can’t we get back to what’s normal? After all, we’re beholden. Libyans rebel Gadaffi on the slaughter but now silence is broken Violence, says Obama, the Afghan assassin, is an unacceptable notion. Aircraft carrier with 400 marines War ships through the Suez No fly assault is on the table The military machine’s oil is now unstable! Freeze Gadaffi’s assets. What about Goldman Sachs? At least the Egyptians Knew who to attack. Americans resist as Obama dismantles our past with JP Morgan in Chief this nation won’t last. Bill Gates wants our pensions Governor Walker our rights Bankers take our homes, As Obama takes the mic. The Ds and Rs both beyond repair There even less relevant than the Wafd over there. Collective Giving won’t work They want it all, don’t you know. A little bit each time It’s the Liberals’ mojo. Congress gives bankers our funds David Koch our fresh air. They want us to live quiet lives of despair. “Game Over” is the sign It’s true even here. There is no bargain to be made Let’s have regime change, no fear. Can we imagine A democratic state. One where the people Get what they make. We keep conferencing with workshops, panels and speakers a dead-end technology with the people in bleachers. There’s no way around it The space must be open With all the uncertainty of a circle unbroken. Sometimes I wonder If that was Tahrir The youth opened a space Where people lost fear. They formed a community Where free thought could take place where demands were formed and solidarity embraced. It was stronger than violence It shocked ever those who tortured and beat those kids they opposed. I remember Seattle where kids saw a space that opened a door to the Ministerial race. It got slammed shut by cops, the state and its gas but the neo-liberal agenda began to breath its last gasp. The institutions are closed the relief valves shut tight but that makes it easy to see the space that’s in sight. I wonder how many Tahrirs we could construct over time to expose the bankruptcy of the bankers’ last crime. We all know they took it But we do want it back A future with meaning for our kids and their pack.
