Sports Car

In the past, whenever we visited our children in Los Angeles, I'd fantasize about the kind of car I'd buy if we lived there all year round. I'd alternate between a sturdy, sensible, dignified car, one suitable for a retired gent, and a sports car. I'd remember with nostalgic fondness a Jaguar convertible two-seater, circa 1950, black, sleek, with feminine lines. It belonged to a friend of mine, who gave me a couple of rides in it, each time a thrill, not because of the car's speed - my friend drove within the speed limits - but because of the machine's beauty.

I no longer drive, so these fantasies are moot, but as a young person and well into middle age, I would look at such vehicles with wistful longing, imagining my inner sportsman and explorer driving one along a winding mountain road, the wind in my hair, an ascot at my throat, and elegant leather driving gloves on my hands. Girls would swoon at my approach and I'd pretend I didn't understand why.

But over the past few years I've noticed a profound change in my attitude towards these cars. I now look at them with an indulgent smile, taking pleasure in their appearance but with no envy of their owners or any appetite for owning one myself, even if could drive again. For one thing, I can't imagine entering or exiting such a low vehicle gracefully at this age of my development.

My judgment was vindicated recently during our stay in Los Angeles. While seated in our rental car in a Ralph's supermarket parking lot, waiting for my wife to emerge with the Times and some organic apples, I saw an old guy unlocking the door of the light gray Porsche convertible parked next to our Dodge. The car's top was up, but this was not the case for the old man's back, bent with osteoporosis. Painfully, he inserted his right foot into the car, slowly lowered himself into its bucket seat, and then with both hands pulled his left leg into the car to join the rest of him. He probably felt relieved when he could close the door.

Years ago, a New Yorker cartoon showed a middle-aged guy in a car salesroom examining a sports car. "Are you sure," he asked the salesman, "this doesn't have mid-life crisis written all over it?" If the geezer with the Porsche ever had a mid-life crisis, he recovered well before he bought this car, for the car was relatively new and he was distinctly old. But mid-life is not the only time for age-related crises. One faces them in old age too. Perhaps the purchase of his impractical car helped this old man compensate for his feelings of diminished physical ability. True, he found it hard to get behind the wheel, but once he was there, he was, as my wife said after I had told her what I had seen, as powerful as anyone. Or perhaps he faced no crisis at all. Perhaps he was finally fulfilling the fantasy of his youth and why not? If not now, when?