Have you ever heard the windshield wipers on a 1958
Chevrolet? Of course, I am referring to the lower setting. I am talking about
the sound they make when you are driving on a country road during a shower and
not a storm. There is no other sound like it. It almost has a breathing, vocal quality
to it.
I have.
I know what this is like. We had a 1958 Chevrolet when I was
a little boy. However, it was not until we sold it to my uncle that I finally
appreciated the sound of the wipers. Uncle Howard and his wife Thelma, took
Bill and I am to their cabin one morning. We hung around a while and even tried
to fish in the little pond below the house, but a cool, spring shower ran us
back to the shelter. It was an escape-day. Somehow, Bill and I were allowed to
leave the chaos of our home-life for a day.
Back at the crude, little cabin, we sat out the rain a
while. The roof was tin and there was no insulation or ceiling below the tin.
So the sound of the rain was wonderful.
Finally, it was time to think about lunch and there was a
new burger place in Dallas. We all ran to the Chevy and headed down Everett
Mountain. The road was gravel in places where it wasn’t washed out to muddy
ruts, but it was not terrible; it just meant that we’d need to go slow. I will
never forget the way it felt, coming down that big hill. The rain was steady
and Howard was careful to avoid the bigger ruts. The wipers kept up their
swish-swash, but the sound of the electric motor was also coming through and
into the car’s cabin. It had a pleasant, lady’s voice and it sounded like it
was singing, “Love you. Love you. Love you.”
You could put your own words with it, but that’s what I made
it out to be.
To this very day, over half a century later, I still love
that kind of afternoon. I love a spring shower. To have a ’58 Chevy or a tin
roof is as good as life ever gets.
Why do I mention this here? Why today? Why am I talking
about this when I need to be getting ready for work?
Because I have escaped before. I have escaped an emotional
prison that was far more fortified than I find myself confined to on this day. As
a young boy, growing up in a dysfunctional home, escapes were all I had. From
there, I learned how to skip school and I found out that a car could transport
me to the lake in Acworth. I felt like I had found the holy grail when I would
skip school and go sit out on the banks of Altoona. There, I would feel that
feeling again. I would escape.
Today, I am afraid I must escape somehow. There are times
when it does not really matter if you are ranked highest in the district; it
means more to me to be ranked among those who know what the wipers on a 1958
Chevrolet sound like.
