Down memory lane

We got a new car! A wickedly unjustified, slightly un-green, way out of our means but hot diggidy does it feel good behind the wheel!
It’s a brand spanking new VW Eos nice shinny silver blue. 6cylinder Audi 3.2 litre engine purring under the hood, waiting to snarl at the touch of the foot, 6 speed Tiptronic transmission (paddles on the steering wheel, mind you!). Very German black lather and polished aluminum interior, dual zone whatever, satellite radio, Pirelli “painted-on" tires on huge wheels and the most insane disappearing hard top you have ever seen. In my estimation I should be the proud owner of a driver license for maybe two more weeks at best! See, I derive a juvenile pleasure in blowing other vehicles doors off!
I really feel in the ultimate lap of luxury, zooming thru the curves of the Ortega highway or cruising down the road, roof tucked away back in the trunk (that car is the next best think to a full blown transformer when doing the transit from coupe to convertible!) motor purring as we are gliding along.
The other day, on my way to work (one and half hour commute), alone, Jinny was out of town, I made a trip down on memory lane; sixty and some years ago back to my first car rides.
I was born in occupied France in World War Two and the family car, a Peugeot 202, spend from 1939 to the end of the next decade on blocks, in a garage. At the beginning of the war the tires had been requisitioned for the war effort. I vaguely remember making a few visits to the small barn where it was kept and my memory of those visits where a little bit like the memory of a spiritual pilgrimage. My Dad lifting the canvas covering the car and gently running his hands on the gray machine paralyzed by the lack of wheels.
The end of the war was a period of penury and it was only in the late forties early fifties that my Dad, as the result of favors to a friend of a friend of the friend of a distant relative find a place in Châteauroux, a good hundred miles from my home town of Limoges, where some lucky soul was holding four wheels and used tires of the right size and was willing to barter for it.
I do not know what was traded but I know that my Dad and my Grandfather boarded the local train and came back to a hero welcome with four wheels and tire instantly grafted back to the 202. Gas was secured (a little more trading off course because of the still present rationing) and the long silent Peugeot coughed back to life after much prompting and the intervention of a couple of backyard mechanics.
From this day on, most weekend were the excuse for treks to the country, to some of the millions of closely or loosely related cousins, grand uncles and the like, result of my family having lived in the same county since God only knows when. People of the Limousin are not a traveling out of the county bunch; the exception off course being the result of one of the cyclical wars when the young males where drafted as convenient canon fodder and shipped back either on foot or in boxes.
The trips to the farms were also reason for some more bartering and country meals whose description would be enough to drive a fairly liberal dietetician to insanity. My folks took their butter, lard, foie gras, rillettes, ragout, big brashy red wine, sweet white wines and wicked home made booze seriously!
The day would start by my Dad and I taking the Trolley to the Post office for the obligatory telegram informing the Insurance Company that our car would be on the road that day!
Then we would regroup with our dog to the barn, where among whispered swearing, incantation and the like the Peugeot would be coaxed to life. We would then putter our way to the house to pick-up my Mother and Sister whose tender ears had been spared the ritual of the starting of the car.

That was my moment of glory, sitting on the front seat, place of honor that would have to be relinquished the second my Mom was boarding the car. I was then send to the back seat, with my Sister and our dog Black (So named because he was a white and brown Brittany spaniel. We are a complex bunch!).
Happy singing was de rigueur at least at the beginning of the trip. Those were indeed glorious times, head out of the window, my sister on one window, Black and me on the other one.
My Dad was using a unique and, in his mind, very economical way of driving whose main incongruity was the technic of turning off the engine and coasting downhill in neutral on the downside of each hill, Relatively bearable when the road was straight but absolutely nerve wracking on a downhill winding road, considering that my Dad was extremely reluctant to loose his momentum by even the slightest use of the brakes. I still can see the scene of my Dad fighting the steering wheel of the non-power assisted steering of a vehicle dangerously leaning in a curve, tire screeching, my Mother white knuckled grabbing the door handle (suicide doors!) from one hand and the dashboard from the other all the while making that peculiar noise that one makes by inhaling thru tightly clinched teeth. The morning downhill was ok but in the after noon when the big meal, the liberal heavy wine and various eau de vie/schnapps of plum, cherry, pear and other where endowing my Dad with a driving gusto not shy at pushing the envelop, things were a little more tight!. Those where moment that make you appreciate the end of the trip.
Since the venerable car had lost a good number of its original horsepower over the years the uphill part of the journey where must less exhilarating and soon the poor car would be advancing uphill at a decreasing speed on a jerking motion coupled to a sound not unlike “gnaw-gnaw-gnaw-“ In the after noon it was usually the time when my Dad was captivating in his ability to use the worst language, between his teeth, all the while rudely abusing the old three speed transmission. It was also the time when my sister and I were hit by a suicidal urge to try to gaud the car by the chant “ La montera tu la côte, la côte, la montera tu la côte mon vieux” (While you climb the hill, the hill, while you climb the hill, Buddy?) at nausea. From the back seat the sight of my Dad neck turning deep purple, with that peculiar bulging vein pulsing, should have been an indication that the incantation where not receiving a welcome.
So usually the end of the trip was a mix of car sputtering, tire screeching, clinched teeth swearing punctuated with threat of horrible punishment as soon as my Dad would be liberated from his driving duties. It was also the time when my Mom would come up with a “ Voyons, Louis calme toi!” (Be sensible Louis, calm down) whose result was not unlike what you would get by throwing a gallon of gas in the firepace to kill the fire!
At the end of the trip, off course I was not invited to the return to the barn trip, being instead summarily committed to my bed with threat of bread and water for the next century or two…….and left to dream of the excitement of the next weekend trip that I was actually looking forward to, with great excitement. Boy I was a weird kid!