Get Your Motor Runnin'

This hot little momma is a 1953 Buick Eight! I test drove her tonight. She has a 3 gear shift on the column with a big 8 ball on the end of the shaft. I slid behind the wheel. The seats comfortable and smooth. I rolled down the window and the man who has her for sale climbed into the passenger side. The last car I drove anywhere near this car was a '63 Opal Cadet. I drove to school up until my senior year. I inserted the key. Turned it from "lock" to "on". Pressed the starter button hidden under the dash. She roared to life and idled with that deep throaty growl akin to only Bonnie Rait. The man told me to reach under the dash and press the other button my fingers touched. As I did a specialty horn let out a long low wolf call of a whistle. Oh, hell, I love this car!! "Standard shift?", I asked with a loud laugh. "Yes, she is," the red haired man with dew rag and harley-like sunglasses smiled. I pushed in the clutch, put my foot on the break and tested the shift. Forward and up to reverse, forward and down to first, up and back to second, back and down to third. I put her back in reverse and depressed the gas pedal. The engine roared, the guys on the man's porch laughed. "Gonna stand there and laugh to see if I let her stall?" I called out the window. The red haired boy shook his head, laughed and answered, "No, ma'am." I revved the engine a little easing my foot off the clutch and she began to smoothly roll backward. The steering wheel is almost as big as a an old mack truck, a big 8 ball attached to make the turning easy. I didn't use it, I kept my hands on the wheel. Hand over hand I turned as I eased her back and my palm brushed the metal bar running across the wheel and horn blared. Oh, man! I was in love and had not even made it to the road. I turned the wheel, easing in the clutch and touching the brake, smoothly shifted her into first and got a wheel coming out of the man's gravel driveway. The engine roared as it whined out and I shifted into second. The stop sign came up quick and I stopped with the blinker flashing to the left. Back in first I pulled out onto the road. The man in the wide seat beside me was talking and I wasn't listening. I was listening to this baby sing as we shifted into second then to third and tooled down the road right past my house and out to the main highway. As I made the right turn onto the Virginia State Highway I hit the gas pedal and shifted when she screamed for the next gear. The wind blew into the windows and she reached 55 mph at a very easy pace. That stretch of highway hummed under her radial belted tires. Man, what a sound! All too soon the ride was over and I was making a right turn and then a left and back into the man's driveway. I did not want to get out. I wanted to go down to the interstate and let her open to see what she would really do but with the traffic backed up from the beltway from the scare of the fly-by of a cessna into the forbidden zone over Washington, D.C. reached on for miles. I would have been lucky to get her up to 30 mph out there. What he is asking for it is standard for a car the shape it is in. The real question is if I want to pay for it. I would love to have this ride. I would go anywhere in it that she would be willing to take me. We have to think about it. We have to talk about it. If it were up to me I would buy it and not think twice. But this world isn't all about me and I have to think of others. I wonder what we will do. At this point I honestly don't know. She sure feeds the ego when you are sitting behind the wheel.