WALKING SEATTLE-WARDS

My wife and I have been together long enough that I reckon I’ve heard all her stories, most of them many times.  But over the weekend she told me a walking story I’d never heard before.  Back in the day when she lived in Seattle, she was the owner of a very cool but rapidly expiring 1948 Plymouth that had cost her a hundred dollars.  It looked much like the image up above.

 One time, she and her then boyfriend were driving on the Seattle freeway, having up a young hitchhiker, as was the style at the time.  As the three of them were driving along, the car finally died suddenly and completely, having just enough momentum to make it to the freeway exit and roll down the off ramp, coming to a halt at the bottom of the slope.

My wife really didn’t know what to do.  The car wasn’t worth repairing, and even having it towed away would be a complete waste of time and money.  But then the young hitchhiker said, “OK, I’ll buy the car from you.”

She assumed he was trying to be funny but it became clear he was serious.  He was apparently a well-to-do kid who still lived with his parents, and his plan was to get the car home and park it in the back garden so he could sit in it and contemplate the mysteries of the universe.  He would telephone his dad, who was evidently the doting sort, and dad would come along in his truck and tow the car back to the house.  The kid offered $50 cash for the Plymouth.  My wife took the money, and left before the kid’s dad arrived, just in case he might have had certain objections to the deal, and she set off for home on foot.

It hadn’t been such a bad day.  She had $50 in her pocket and she’d got rid of a car that was probably worth nothing at all.  She was a fair distance from where she lived but there was nevertheless a certain spring in her step as she walked all the way home.