YOU CAN COME ALONG - BUT STAY BEHIND ME
Forgive the poetic slant to this week's prose, but it all sort of struck me at once: The spring. The breeze. The sunset. All of that caught up to me last week, as I followed Godzilla to Columbus, Ohio.I was piloting Jo's portly white Volkswagen Routan behind a very special car. A supercar if ever I saw one. A foreign devil, with a decidedly America twist. A Switzer-modified R35 GTR Nissan, ripping along the highway at full song.
Dubbed "Godzilla" by the foreign press, this particular example of R35 was angry and loaded up on power. I followed its taillight signature like a meddling kid after a mystery, mesmerized by its speed and the setting sun across its "super-silver" flanks.
The GTR blipped and barked now and then, passing lesser cars (and they are all lesser cars) effortlessly with a faint puff of smoke and a malevolent whine from the turbos. The car rushed ahead like it beheld some secret to happiness, and I was left behind in its wake - left alone in the quiet VW to notice the full-blown greenness of Spring that I'd forgotten after all of these months of Ohio winter.
The van hustled to keep up, whipping past rust-colored barns, a yellow horse statue (!?), and a sign that said "hidden drives". Even as far back as I was, I barely missed the fact that my radio wasn't on. It was enough to listen to the hum coming from the GTR and hear the swoosh of the blurred road. …
I laughed at the sight of the GTR passing a Mennonite horse. The horse turned its head to watch the car's passing with a sort of inter-species "right on, brutha!" nod.
The car reached its new home after two too brief hours, and nestled into its new garage home alongside another supercar if I ever saw one. Its owner beaming like a little kid. I knew what he looked like at five years old on Christmas morning, I think. With a car like that in the stable, I think I'd look the same.
“I have the heart for healthcare”
3 years ago
