The Skylark

Yeah, I won't lie, there have been a few moments in my life where I have pretended to know something about cars. This deception only occurs in either a macho situation, or when arguing with someone I don't like about what could be wrong with someone else's car. Either scenario is really the only time I have ever voiced my non-existent opinion about what type of car I like, and what I know about the beasts organs and methods. Honest to god truth I know nothing about cars, and not only that I don't care to know. I am secure enough in my masculinity to not require this ugly trait from some forgotten patriarchs or hyper masculine pre-suffrage identity molding. However, judging from my interactions with my first car the Skylarkth, cars are more then capable of returning these clouds of negative feelings with extreme fevor.

My first car I ever had was a 1984 2-door Buick Skylark. It had previously been my sister's car until it was pawned off to me my senior year of high school. The Buick was a small car that use to be a nice pink color but after years of extreme use in our harsh Minnesota climate faded to a light fleshy-brown color. The inside of it was a dark brown, which I was grateful for because it concealed the various stains from beverages and food. Another characteristic that gave the Buick such a superb sense of individuality was its massive doors that when they swung out easily doubled the car's width. The Buick on a regular basis would break down, fishtail, leak gasoline, and conveniently died in the middle of busy intersections. During one of these moments I was traveling with a companion and they became quickly alarmed by the predicament. It also happened to be on one of the busiest highways in the Twin Cities which enhanced the situation. Even more alarming to him was my cold and unaffected demeanor during the occurrence as horns blasted and wailed behind us. After a few moments I got the car running again and we were on our way. The Buick and any elemental force did match well either, snow being the worse. I remember giving the same poor soul a ride during a particularly horrible blizzard and my car fishtailed throwing us onto someone's law near my high school. The scream he let out was quite horrible as we hurtled towards the tree, often times I wonder if there was any long lasting physiological damage from being my passenger. The Buick did win me some accolades in high school specifically where I was awarded the one and only beater of the month award. I asked the editor in the hallway if I there was going to be any other awards, but he said not until I left school since there was no chance for any competition.

The Buick was not done though, in an effort to preserve mileage on his van he used for work my dad began to use the Buick for transportation to all his job sites. This did not last long however due to the same issues that plagued me well it was in my possession. One instance in particular when he summoned me to a Super America where he was installing the ceiling on one hot summer day. There he had a flat tire in the parking lot and was trying to patch it with some miscellaneous tire patch kit he had bought at the dollar store. The kit had a rubber substance you would place over the leaking part of the tire and hold it in place. Once you got the strange sticky clay stuff onto the tire you would then drive it and mold it to the tire. It was a nice idea in theory but only if the leak was small enough not blast the substance off from the stream-lined air pressure bursting forth from the leak. Unfortunately the leak in the tire was exceptionally powerful and every time my father would place the substance onto the venting tire it would rocket off somewhere. Typically below the car, towards his sweaty face, or somewhere onto the pavement at least twenty feet away. Being struck in the face particularly irritated my father. All I really could do was watch my father hunched over the tire, with his arms wrapped around it, struggling to maintain the substance over the leak. After about twenty tries my dad gave up, specifically after the substance flew off behind the giant green dumpsters behind the Super America. My father then tried to change the tire on the Buick but the trunk had been broken since we bought the car. Resembling a hulking sweaty caveman my dad then tried to tear the back seats out of the Buick in an effort to get to the trunk. After a few sweaty struggling moments of trying to wrench the seat free he soon realized that someone had silicon-ed the seats down. My father then launched into a profanity ridden inner dialogue with himself and whoever might have done this strange vehicular modification. Knowing his options were limited at this point, my father threw in the towel and we went home with the A/C pumping full blast.

Eventually the Skylark was donated to some random veteran charity and it meshed into the fog of time and memory. I will never forget all the time I spent sweating in busy intersections or calculating gas with the cashier with an angry mob behind me. I feel both happiness and sadness when I recollect my Skylark. Any true antique should produce two warring feelings, dread and love.