haiku for the past

Vintage Cars At Nokomis Lanes, BlackBerry Shots, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2010, photo © 2010 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

snippets of the past,
bowling alley or drive-in?
2-D sleight of hand —
vintage cars fade into walls,
the future walks a thin line.

-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, April 8th, 2010

-related to posts: haiku 2 (one-a-day), WRITING TOPIC — MEMORIES OF CARS

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turn of the key haiku

the key, C-41 print film, up on the mesa top, outside
Taos, New Mexico, January 2003, photo © 2003-2009
by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
 
 
 
 
 
 


 

frozen rusty lock
not knowing she has the key–
waits for the next turn

 

-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, September 17th, 2009

-related to post: haiku 2 (one-a-day)

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WRITING TOPIC – MEMORIES OF CARS

Granddaddy & His Cadillac, Augusta, Georgia, February 11th, 1956, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Do you have memories of the “family” car? Riding backwards with your brothers and sisters in the cargo seat of a 1967 Chevy wagon? The smell of the dirt-bottomed garage where your great, great uncle stored his vintage 1930’s black Pontiac? A Sunday ride in your dad’s Oldsmobile convertible? Taking a cross-country vacation in a flat nose 1962 Ford Econoline van?

October is a milestone month for the production of cars. After the internal combustion engine was invented, cars began to be mass produced in the 1920’s. Every American family wanted to own a car. October is the anniversary of Henry’s Ford’s first production “Model T.”

According to Old Car and Truck Pictures:

The first production Model T Ford was assembled at the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit on October 1, 1908. For the next 19 years, Ford would build 15,000,000 cars and trucks with the Model “T” engine. The only other car to exceed that number was the Volkswagen Beetle. Considering the years when Henry did it, 1908 to 1927, it is surely a record that will never be beaten. Henry Ford had succeeded in his dream of building a car for the masses.

In research through shoeboxes of old photographs, I discovered that many images were of family members proudly standing next to their cars. Remember the jingle, “See the USA in your Chevrolet…? ” One of my fathers was a Chevy man; he has always driven Chevrolets and still owns a Chevy truck to this day. Another drove Oldsmobiles and I remember his red Olds convertible with the white rag top. What kind of car did your father own?

Family Scrapbook — Fathers, Sons, Daughters, & Cars:

Mom & Uncle Jack, Augusta, Georgia, circa late 1930s, early 1940s, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Granddaddy In Pinstripes, along with Mom and Uncle Jack, Augusta, Georgia, circa early 1940’s, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

My grandfather was a GM man. He owned a Cadillac. And the day his son Jack graduated from high school, he was presented with a 1954 Pontiac Star Chief (which oddly I remember looking more like this 1953 Chieftain Catalina). I remember the car well; Uncle Jack died unexpectedly a few months before I was born and my mother inherited the Pontiac. It would figure prominently in my early childhood memories. I loved the way that Pontiac looked and smelled. And through my child-eyes, the orange hood ornament of Chief Pontiac, and the ornate grille and tail chrome, added a certain respectability and regalness to the way the car moved down the road.

If you think about it, cars were the Internet of their day, changing the way people communicated, socialized, visited with family, and, eventually, after the Interstate infrastructure was built by Eisenhower in the 1950’s, the way we moved around the country, sometimes never to return home. Cars changed America. (And we have our wildly fluctuating gas prices and chronic dependence on fossil fuels to prove it.)

Uncle Jack & His Pontiac, Augusta, Georgia, circa 1954,
photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

What memories do you have of the “family” car? Did you live on a farm where trucks were more important than cars? Was your father a man who would only buy American-made cars? Or did he believe VW’s and Toyota’s were better made and would last longer. What kind of cars did your mother own? How did the cars your family owned influence those you would buy as an adult?

There are two steps to this week’s Writing Practice:

(1) Make a list of all the cars you have owned; make another list of the cars your family owned when you were growing up. Be as specific as possible about year, make, and model. If you need help, dig through old family photographs and chances are you’ll bump into your family history of automobiles.

(2) Do a 15 minute Writing Practice on one of these car-related Topics:

• How many cars have you owned? Make a list. After making your list, choose one and do a 15 minute Writing Practice about a memory connected to that car. Think about the way it smelled, the color, the way you felt when you drove it. Was it a stick, 5-speed, 4-on-the-floor, automatic, or 3-speed on the column? Write everything you know about that car. Start the Practice with — “The first time I drove my 19xx  _________…”

 

• What was the first car you owned? Was it new or used? How old were you when you learned to drive? High school, junior high? Who taught you to drive? Do a Writing Practice on “My first car ________.” Be as detailed as possible. Include all the senses.

 

• Write a memory of one of your family cars. I have memories of traveling across the Savannah River to visit with my Grandmother Elise and her singing to me along the way. Write about a childhood memory associated with a car your family owned. Write down the make, model, year of the car. Then beside it, write “I Remember______” and see what comes out. You might be surprised how far 4 wheels and a full tank of gas can take you in your writing.

 

Granddaddy & Uncle Bill, Augusta, Georgia, circa early 1950’s,
photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, October 12th, 2008

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What’s Up With The Balls?? Really.

Truck Cojones, pen and ink on graph paper, doodle © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.



I see them swinging underneath the back ends of trucks here in town, and I gotta wonder, what’s up with the truck testicles??

I mean, don’t we have enough stuff on our cars? Calvin peein’ on this thing or that thing, naked woman mud flaps, and bumper stickers for every bent in life.

Why do our vehicles need to start wearing fake genitalia?

I’m serious.

Are the balls to compensate for something? The modern-day version of toilet paper in the bra or down the pants.

This source says they are expressions of “rural chic.” What happened to cowboy hats and denim shirts with the arms cut off?

I figure those oversized swingin’ cojones are another way of saying, Don’t mess with me! If so, I prefer the good ol’-fashioned bird. Flip me off if you have to, but for Pete’s sake, put your balls back where they belong!



p.s. I would have taken a photo, except I don’t want to get in a wreck (my daughters already got mad at me for taking the photo below while driving).

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