This morning, barely underway on my walk to my downtown workspace and still on our street, I chance upon Ian and Laura and … the Giulia.
Okay, we all know that cars are just “things”. But from some of my earliest childhood memories, they also represented a vehicle (whoops, wrong word) to the larger outside world, an escape from the farm and a ticket to new experiences. As a young kid, I spent hours drawing futuristic car designs (once entering in the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild competition), sitting behind the wheel of my uncle’s Mercury and watching TV productions like the 50’s play in which a mentally-challenged adult cared for by his parents in the rural South would escape for a few minutes now and then to the rusted remains of an old car abandoned in a wooded clearing and twist the steering wheel while pretending to be on a trip to the “far city”.
Turned out that Ian and Laura were house hunting on our street, but were happy to pause to show me around the car and encouraged me to sit behind the wheel. So, out of common courtesy to my brand-new acquaintances, I was forced to oblige.
SIDEBAR: By the time I had prepared this post, I realized that I had intended it for my car blog, not the family blog. But moving the thing is just too much trouble … So, fwiw …
And in further developments as I continue my morning trek …
