"Visions"

Whenever we make the long trek to the old stomping grounds, the old lady insists on an early start. That way, some of the day is still left when we get there.

As always, the traffic becomes very sparse after the first hour of the journey. Few hardy souls venture further than the fringes of the great barren north. The biggest barrier between us and our destination is an endless expanse of interstate highway carved out of largely unsettled hills and forests.

I have the cruise control set at 78, a fine compromise between the desire to timely cover the considerable mileage, and the powerful aversion to sparring hopelessly with one of the governor's shiny, young, crew-cut revenue collectors.

Several hours of driving in the old lady's late model, Japanese/domestic, mid-level luxo-sedan make my back throb dully and my knees creak with pain. At 6'1" and a couple of hundred and some pounds, I guess I'm fairly close to the average size American motorist ....O.K....maybe a little larger. Nevertheless, I feel like I need a damned shoehorn every time I get into a Jap car, , and I always end up bending my extremities in places I don't even have joints.

....which reminds me again of the good old days selling cars, about a hundred years go like I already said, way back when Chrysler introduced the imported Mitsu "mini-van." It was right at the beginning of the big, new mini-van craze, with the Caravans and Voyagers blowing off the lot before they even had time to cool off.

The few Mitsu's allocated to us were no exception. They, too, were an instant sale, ....a great thing for the dealership's floor plan. The problem with these cars was they were built for Japs. The sales brochures and the spec sheets billed them as "7 passenger" vehicles, which might well have been the case in Japan, but here in the States they might only carry 4 medium/small Americans and a couple of six-paks, tops ––and everybody knew it, too. Everybody except the customers, of course. Some big folks, these, and always with lots of kids.

....I never could figure that one out. The way I see it, kids only grow bigger and adults just get fatter. Well, ....perhaps people in general only get larger, ....but apparently not smarter.

I have arranged to pick up the Caddy first thing tomorrow morning because today is Sunday. Though Chase's lot is a little out of the way to the in-law's, it goes without saying we're going to go see the Fleetwood before we do anything else. I've owned her for almost two weeks now and set nary an eye on her yet.

Finally, after several long hours on the road, we pull in to the top end of Chase's carlot. Scottie's lot is not too large, sporting maybe 40 units sitting under the sparkling afternoon sky. Three rows of iron adorn the front of the buildings, and a row is arrayed on either side of the yard. The old lady is craning her neck this way and that, looking for the "old bucket of bolts" that surely awaits, barely able to conceal the "I-fucking-told-you-so" look on her sceptical, scowling face.

Without a pause, I drive directly up to the Cad, sitting regally like a Queen in the very middle of the center row. As if drawn by a magnet, I stop broadside in front of her without saying a word.

"That's it?" she says, jaw dropped, an amazed look of incredulous confusion spread all over her recently smug mien.

"Well, ....yeah!" I exult, temporally vindicated.

The brilliantly shining chrome of the expansive grille and the formidably substantial bumper smile benevolently at us, as in pleasant greeting. Sitting in the little rice-burner, the big Cad seems to look in at us at eye level, dwarfing everything in the general vicinity.

As I struggle to extricate myself from the old lady's little ricemobile, I hear mama muttering a bemused, "Oh, my Gawd," behind me, and not without a hint of sheepishly concealed excitement.

The Caddy's paint is a handsome light blue, almost a slate grey, setting off the flawless trim and chrome to perfection. I need to look closer than three feet in order to discern her minor little dings, accumulated and borne gracefully over the past nineteen odd years. They are virtually negligible.

She's about a mile long, relative to everything else in sight, and we spend about ten minutes just walking around her, gawking. Mama peers in the windows, by now fairly stupefied.

"Look at the seats!" she gushes. "It's beautiful!"

"Hmmm.... yes," I gloat, quite pleased with myself. I fight an overpowering urge to turn a few cartwheels in the street while shouting out several Hallelujah's.

I dismiss the sudden impulse to call up Scottie Chase and wrest him away from his family on a Sunday afternoon in order to take immediate delivery of my new baby ....anyway, we are overdue at the folks' by now, and what's one more night to wait after all this time?

Smiling uncontrollably, I make a mental note to pick Paulson up a bottle of Crown Royal first thing in the morning, and I grit my teeth in excruciating anticipation as we drive off the lot.