WildExpressions.ca Garage

Up to our arses in snow and only part way though winter…. sigh. As I sit here watching Dennis cruise Alaska in a Foose/Boyd built Studabaker I can’t help but think back to summer.

Driving an old flamed black bus as your daily is an interesting experience. People look at you differently and you start to look back at them differently as well. You start to see thing in a new light light or perhaps it is that the new light starts to illuminate things more clearly and so you start to notice.

I’ve noticed that the sound of the wind rasping against a body that shows a bare grasp of aerodynamics is not a bad thing. It connects you with the world and makes you sit up and pay attention. I spent an entire summer with the windows down and one arm hanging out the window and it was a very good thing.

I noticed that the strongest icons of cool in our society are under attack by the wannabe cool. They’re wannabe’s because they never paid their dues. They’re wannabe’s because they are nothing like the image they try to portray.

You see them revving the motor of their v-twins intimidating the elderly as they glare at passing motorists over their boutique bandanna’s. Who could have guessed that the heritage of the Harley would be that of retired mortgage brokers and dentists cruising their way from one coffee shop parking lot to the next? The middle aged versions of gang-banger wannabes are turning the image of the iron cowboy into an overly chromed and polished designer leather coffee addicted geriatric parody of itself.

I’ve noticed that people are scared to spend time with themselves, to think, to review their day, their week, their lives. They are so determined to spend every waking moment distracting themselves that texting has become common in their cars. How sad is that?

I’ve noticed that the sound of a beat up old engine thumping away so loudly it takes several hundred watts of amplification just to tell what song you are listening to is not a bad thing. Cruising the back roads on a summer day the sound of that old flat four will somehow take you on a wonderful mental journey.

I’ve noticed that not keeping up with the flow of traffic on the trans-Canada highway is not a bad thing. Cars slow down from 140 to have a look and many of them have their first honest grin of the day, maybe of the month. It is the grin captured by Norman Rockwell in a hundred paintings and I didn’t realize how rarely it is seen on an adult till this summer.

My first full summer in the Bus earned back a little piece of my soul. I didn’t even realize that it had been stolen but I’ve come to realize that commuter cars were designed by Satan. It was a good summer for the forces of good and I can’t wait for the snow to melt.