a man and his unlikely dream car

When I was a kid - maybe five or six years old - my dad drove an early 1970s silver-gray Gremlin. You might not remember such a car, as they apparently only made the gem for less than a decade, and stopped before I was nary a twinkle in my mother's eye.

But my dad loved his Gremlin. I remember riding to school in the bare-bones jalopy, my dad with his burly dark beard and grey hair and my brother and I silenced in the back seat by the ever-present NPR playing on the AM/FM radio. I didn't know any one else that owned a Gremlin, and in fact, I still have never met anyone with such a privilege.

At some point, the car was unceremoniously sold for something no doubt more practical and less memorable, but I think my dad has thought about that car from time to time for the past two decades. Little did I know, he had also recently been scanning the pages of EBay.

"I just called to tell you I am the proud owner of a 1974 lime green Gremlin."

This was his voice mail to me this weekend. I had heard he placed a bid on the car a few days before, but my brother and I both were a little skeptical that he would follow through with the inevitable last minute bidding wars before the auction closed on Saturday morning. We assumed he'd get outbid by a Gremlin collector (there has to be a collector somewhere in the world, right?) or decide it wasn't really worth it, and really what business did the dean of a high falootin' school have driving around such a silly car? (I can hear the Media Relations folks now, trying to explain that they have been patient with him in the past, but this might have just pushed it passed the line of what is acceptable for academia.)

But Pops won the auction with a final bid that was more than double his opening bid (but still coming in hundreds lower than some women pay for wedding dresses). And now he is indeed the proud owner of a lime green - oh yes, lime - Gremlin, sold by a guy who called it a "fun car, old like me" and who promised to throw in a bag of M&Ms - plain, not peanut - to the buyer.

Ever since he traded in his early midlife crisis Mazda sports car for a large, sensible, white Toyota several years ago, my father has complained about the car. Under the guise of frustrations about a rattling this and shaking that, he looked for reasons to hate the car. It's just not practical, he'd say, with all these automatic buttons and bells and whistles. He always preferred driving my 10-year-old manual-everything Toyota that doesn't even have a radio or a hubcap to its name. But now I wonder if the only thing wrong with his car is that it isn't a Gremlin.

I am not sure if he's going to give up his practical, acceptable for a man of standing in academia and the community Toyota. I guess at first I assumed he'd have both cars, until I was reminded that people don't keep a Gremlin stowed in the garage for weekend jaunts around town. I can certainly picture him driving it, 25 years later still donning a beard (although considerably less hair) and listening to NPR. Sure, it will likely attract a few stares, but he should be no stranger to that, as he and my step-mother are admirers of "found art", a.k.a. junk (picture a "bottle tree" next to the driveway, adorned with chardonnay bottles with their labels intact) that decorates the yard.

But what else would he do with it other than ditch the conservative ride and slip comfortably back behind the wheel of a Gremlin? Either way, I hope he'll let me drive it when I'm home next.

Here's a shot of it I pulled from Ebay. Next, I'll try to get one of my dad sitting happily in the driver's seat.