He drove 846 miles to bring that car home for the summer after he was finished teaching in June.
No one could figure out why it hadn't fallen apart on the way, or at least broken down, let him down even, but it hadn't.
A Karmann Ghia, 1956, 1584 cc engine producing 60 hp, a European car the color of faded oranges.
My brother had just turned twenty-two and his career life had begun to flower and grow in the far north of Ontario at the lakehead.
He was excited about teaching, about living so far away from home, and about having his own place in a city that had never heard of him.
If he came home at Christmas wearing a massive full-length wolf coat and carrying a pair of equally massive snowshoes on the train, then surely he'd come home for the summer in a car so foreign and wild it would knock the socks off the boys he grew up with and the uncle who got my sister that Willys.
And he was right.
He was right about everything that summer. Loud and right and laughing and right and glowing and...
Boisterous. And right. You couldn't tell him anything.
The Ghia was a mess. Chipped paint, faded paint, and the interior? Puleeze.
Ripped, torn, scratched, smelly, but wonderful, exotic, and fabulous.
"Get in, get in," he said to me. "I'll take you for a ride."
And he did.
But first - "Be careful of the floor," he said.
"What's that cardboard doing on the floor?" I asked.
"Don't put your feet on it."
"Where do I put my feet, then?"
"On the sides."
"What's so special about a piece of cardboard?" I asked, in fourteen year old innocence.
"Nothing. But it's basically the floor. Lift it up."
I bent down and pulled up the big piece of cardboard and looked beneath it.
Whoa!
"There's gravel down there!" I said.
"Yeah. That's the driveway. There's no floor there. Sorry."
"You can't drive a car with no passenger floor," I said, amazed and intrigued and grinning.
"Sure I can. Put the floor back and keep your feet off it."
The Ghia was low to the ground and so it felt like scooting across the gravel driveway and along the pavement. The thought of seeing the pavement so close made me peek under the cardboard when we were doing about 55 mph on Hwy 74.
What a thrill!
"Put that back!" he said.
Gee.
I went for a lot of rides with my brother that summer, because I loved his car like he did.
But the worst ride I had was coming home from a long weekend at my uncle's cottage. My brother and Dad all drove their cars, but my oldest brother insisted I go with him in his charming Karmann Ghia.
When you're young, the rough ride isn't felt. When you're young and happy, the world flies by at ground level and you never stop laughing.
It was 180 miles of joy, until we went down that long, long hill where at the top of it, a sign, a big sign, screams at you:
Slow down - 25 mph on hill.
Train tracks ahead.
"Slow down," I said. "I've been here many times with Dad. Slow down!" I yelled.
He didn't. He laughed. He was twenty-two, a career man in a foreign sporty car held together by rust and cardboard, and wearing an attitude as big as an elephant.
"I mean it!" I shouted.
"No problem. This car can take those tracks lying down."
The tracks were set in the road partway down the hill. The hill was on a steep slant. The tracks were level. 25 mph would be almost slow enough to cross them safely.
We were doing 65. The Ghia had picked up speed on the steep slant and my brother couldn't wait to hit those tracks.
I grabbed everything I could get my hands on to brace myself against his stupidity.
Behind us, my brother in his car saw what was happening. And he started praying.
The Ghia hit the tracks and became airborne. Silence filled the tiny interior. My heart pounded to death. My brother's face beside me went white and he swore.
My brother in his car behind us way up the hill, doing 25 mph, said later that he was watching us about to die.
When the Ghia landed, it should have blown apart and sent us flying. But it didn't.
It hit with a massive force, jarring every cell in our bodies. Everything behind our seats flew forward and covered us, clothes and beach towels and snacks.
The car slowed and rolled to a stop, then nothing.
We sat, dead-like, shrouded in underwear and potato chips.
"Are you okay?" he whispered.
"Yes," I whispered back. "Are you?"
"I'm sorry."
"You're stupid."
"That too."
We were shaking by now. We had headaches and body aches and we were shaking.
No one could figure out why it hadn't fallen apart on the way, or at least broken down, let him down even, but it hadn't.
A Karmann Ghia, 1956, 1584 cc engine producing 60 hp, a European car the color of faded oranges.
My brother had just turned twenty-two and his career life had begun to flower and grow in the far north of Ontario at the lakehead.
He was excited about teaching, about living so far away from home, and about having his own place in a city that had never heard of him.
If he came home at Christmas wearing a massive full-length wolf coat and carrying a pair of equally massive snowshoes on the train, then surely he'd come home for the summer in a car so foreign and wild it would knock the socks off the boys he grew up with and the uncle who got my sister that Willys.
And he was right.
He was right about everything that summer. Loud and right and laughing and right and glowing and...
Boisterous. And right. You couldn't tell him anything.
The Ghia was a mess. Chipped paint, faded paint, and the interior? Puleeze.
Ripped, torn, scratched, smelly, but wonderful, exotic, and fabulous.
"Get in, get in," he said to me. "I'll take you for a ride."
And he did.
But first - "Be careful of the floor," he said.
"What's that cardboard doing on the floor?" I asked.
"Don't put your feet on it."
"Where do I put my feet, then?"
"On the sides."
"What's so special about a piece of cardboard?" I asked, in fourteen year old innocence.
"Nothing. But it's basically the floor. Lift it up."
I bent down and pulled up the big piece of cardboard and looked beneath it.
Whoa!
"There's gravel down there!" I said.
"Yeah. That's the driveway. There's no floor there. Sorry."
"You can't drive a car with no passenger floor," I said, amazed and intrigued and grinning.
"Sure I can. Put the floor back and keep your feet off it."
The Ghia was low to the ground and so it felt like scooting across the gravel driveway and along the pavement. The thought of seeing the pavement so close made me peek under the cardboard when we were doing about 55 mph on Hwy 74.
What a thrill!
"Put that back!" he said.
Gee.
I went for a lot of rides with my brother that summer, because I loved his car like he did.
But the worst ride I had was coming home from a long weekend at my uncle's cottage. My brother and Dad all drove their cars, but my oldest brother insisted I go with him in his charming Karmann Ghia.
When you're young, the rough ride isn't felt. When you're young and happy, the world flies by at ground level and you never stop laughing.
It was 180 miles of joy, until we went down that long, long hill where at the top of it, a sign, a big sign, screams at you:
Slow down - 25 mph on hill.
Train tracks ahead.
"Slow down," I said. "I've been here many times with Dad. Slow down!" I yelled.
He didn't. He laughed. He was twenty-two, a career man in a foreign sporty car held together by rust and cardboard, and wearing an attitude as big as an elephant.
"I mean it!" I shouted.
"No problem. This car can take those tracks lying down."
The tracks were set in the road partway down the hill. The hill was on a steep slant. The tracks were level. 25 mph would be almost slow enough to cross them safely.
We were doing 65. The Ghia had picked up speed on the steep slant and my brother couldn't wait to hit those tracks.
I grabbed everything I could get my hands on to brace myself against his stupidity.
Behind us, my brother in his car saw what was happening. And he started praying.
The Ghia hit the tracks and became airborne. Silence filled the tiny interior. My heart pounded to death. My brother's face beside me went white and he swore.
My brother in his car behind us way up the hill, doing 25 mph, said later that he was watching us about to die.
When the Ghia landed, it should have blown apart and sent us flying. But it didn't.
It hit with a massive force, jarring every cell in our bodies. Everything behind our seats flew forward and covered us, clothes and beach towels and snacks.
The car slowed and rolled to a stop, then nothing.
We sat, dead-like, shrouded in underwear and potato chips.
"Are you okay?" he whispered.
"Yes," I whispered back. "Are you?"
"I'm sorry."
"You're stupid."
"That too."
We were shaking by now. We had headaches and body aches and we were shaking.
We slowly started uncovering our heads and my door was yanked open and my brother, who'd seen it all, was ghostlike in fear as he peered in at us.
"You're not dead?" he asked, and I started to cry.
Then so did he. And then the driver too. It was awful.
"You couldn't have survived that," he said, over and over. "Do you know how far and how high you flew through the air? You hit the tracks way back up the hill and landed way down here. What the heck's the matter with you!" he screamed at the driver, the one who knew everything that summer.
He pulled me out and gave me a shaky hug, then went around the hood and pulled his big brother out and hugged him too.
Then they inspected the car.
They couldn't believe that the tires weren't blown to smithereens, that the body was still in one piece. It didn't make sense.
"I prayed," my brother said. "Harder than I ever have."
And we cried some more.
The smart brother followed us home to be sure the car would make it.
It rattled a bit, but nothing else.
The cardboard settled back down on the floor.
We were silent for at least ninety minutes of the drive home.
We didn't tell our parents.
My brothers took the Ghia to the garage and had it worked on. But the pain of what it suffered to save our lives was too much for it.
My brother was forced to give it up because it was officially unsafe now.
He drove it around that summer, slowly, but went back to the lakehead in late August, in a different car.
He was a humbled man, that's for sure, the young man who came home knowing everything in 1959.
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