Spooky yard art.
It was a dark and stormy night...
Yes, in honour of Halloween, it’s spooky story time. A TRUE spooky story, at that.
I may just own Manitoba’s version of Christine, the evil, demonic car star of the Stephen King horror flick that shares her name.
Mine is a 1959 Buick LeSabre with, yes, a dark past. Ted Switzer, the third owner of the car, didn’t much like the long, lean, lanky machine from the beginning. He felt a bit pressured as to how the deal went down, but circumstances that I don’t feel free to share here resulted in him becoming the reluctant, resigned owner.
It seems "Fins" — as I’ve named the ol’ ’59 for today’s telling — wasn’t too happy about the deal, either. Switzer says from Day 1, Fins just didn’t seem to want to run as smoothly and dependably as Buicks were renowned for, especially back in those days.
I personally remember how smooth that was, because back in the mid-’60s, my brother Bob owned a stunning white-with-red-interior 1959 Buick Invicta convertible. It not only purred, it floated. I would SO love to have that car now.
Another reason I have such strong memories of Bob’s Buick is because one dark and stormy winter night, Bob realized he hadn’t renewed his registration for 1965. Nothing was open and he needed the car for transportation for him, his family, work, totally uninterrupted. Registration was required, NOW!
So we went down to the basement of our parents’ home, took an aluminum 1963 registration tag that was hanging by the workbench and Bob creatively turned the three into a five. Then we painted it black and yellow (’65 colours), Bob went out and put it on the car, and presto change-o, he was magically "registered" for what he intended to be a very short interim.
To make a long story short, he left it on there all year, didn’t tell his wife Dolly till after he’d replaced it with the ’66 tag — and she wanted to wring his neck. All’s well that ends well — and lucky for him it did.
With that in mind, how coincidental is it that I found a derelict 1959 Buick to rescue, with the tag for the last year it was driven lying on the front seat... 1965?
I truly think it was Bob’s way of saying, "Hello." He passed much too young in 2004.
So why, being only six years old, was Fins parked permanently on a family farm in 1965? The final straw for Switzer came one evening here in the ’Peg, when he was driving his brother — who had cut his head badly — to St. Boniface Hospital for emergency treatment. He was driving through the Corydon/Stafford intersection when the finicky Fins suddenly died. It completely shut down — stalled right in the middle of the intersection.
As efficiently as possible, allow me to summarize how the next few minutes unfolded:
A guy in the car beside Switzer saw that Fins had died and that the passenger was holding a bandage to his bleeding head. He offered to drive him to hospital. A cop showed up from somewhere, offered to ride with the good samaritan and Mr. Head Wound to allow them to speed legally, all of this conversation happening on the boulevard by the street, including a very ticked Switzer.
Fins sits dead, lifeless, in the middle of the intersection... until...
"Until," Ted tells me, "the (expletive) car suddenly starts up with no one in it and begins to drive away!!!!" He’d left it in gear.
Switzer says he has never run faster in his life — and, yes, he managed to catch Fins, hop in and stop him before he did any damage.
And that was, indeed, the last straw. Back to the farm, parked, never to drive again. When I went to pick it up, it actually took some tree removal to create a space big enough to drag it out. And I apologized profusely to the big skunk who emerged from under the car as we pulled it back. He had been under there unseen all the time I was working on the wheels and so on, prepping to move it. Drifted earth had concealed his home sweet home. I spoke with him, we both stayed calm and he wandered off into the bush homeless but unharmed. Nope, he didn’t spray.
I brought Fins home, feeling a close connection to brother Bob as I did so. Were he still alive, this would have been our kind of adventure.
These days, Fins sits proudly as yard art here at my humble home, providing an excellent perch for the cats to view their kingdom. It’s very difficult to move Fins because both front wheels have the brakes seized solid.
I’m guessing that might actually prevent Fins from starting up on his own one day and driving away. But who knows what power demon mechanics possess — or what devious plans they may have in store. I’m not sure I want to find out! Happy Halloween!
Comments or feedback, love to hear from you!
lmustard1948@gmail.com
