American Dreams Immortalized
Josh Ahrens

Up until I was about twelve years old, my grandfather would take me to the most wonderful place in the world. It would usually happen on a Summer Saturday morning, and because my mom knew how much I loved going, she would never tell me ahead of time. The glorious, unmistakable sound of Grandpa downshifting Big Red, his 1961 Studebaker Champ pickup, and rumbling into our driveway announced the event. This is always how Grandpa made his entrance: A thundering V8, followed by the greatest laugh and hug in the world, that would contain my entire frame in his giant, strong, arms, face buried in a warm, flannel lumberjack shirt, with cold snaps against my cheeks. We were going to a barn in Canby, Oregon, that was stuffed full of old cars and spare parts. It was a metropolis of great American iron, representing every era and niche of automobile from inception until the late 1960’s. Dirty, greasy, smelly, an occasional encounter with a disgruntled mouse or spider: the perfect environment to entertain the imagination of a twelve-year-old boy.

The trip there was as magical as the destination. I would hold my nose as we drove past the paper mill in Oregon City (or, as Gramps called it, “Oregon Shitty”), and we would stop for our usual meal of Necco wafers and a bottle of Pepsi. We roared down Highway 99E, a great, old, tree-lined, two-lane, winding along the Willamette River, past sad, wonderful, odd, roadside America. I shaded my eyes from the sun beaming off the surface of the water, and gazed at broken down trucks next to broken down houses, next to broken down people, tired old train tracks, and towering, wooden carvings of bears and Totem poles. Riding next to Grandpa was risky business. A lucky passenger was the recipient of countless wet-willies and Indian burns. The radio never worked, but who needed it when there were old Elvis and Hank Williams songs to sing? I would always rest my hand on the shift lever, the vibrations of trusty Big Red shooting up through my hands and arms as that loyal old V-8 towed us down the highway.

We would pull into the barn, engine idling, gravel crushing under the tires. Grandpa would turn off the ignition, and in an instant the ears were flooded with the sound of nothing at all; just the stillness of the barn, and the rustle of us getting out of the truck. Grandpa would take off in one direction, always whistling loudly, and out of tune, looking for whatever old treasures he might find to help a friend restoring a car, or to keep his own projects on the road. I would race off, and jump into the first car that caught my imagination. In a plush, 1937 sedan, I was Dick Tracy, chasing gangsters, shifting, steering, shooting, fast as I could. If I jumped into something a little more sporty and modern, like a 1963 Avanti, I was plummeting through mountain passes, a famous race driver, running an endurance rally through the Swiss Alps. I could even be a delivery driver in old Zip Vans, a farmer on a tractor, or even a car thief taking joyrides in whatever I wanted. When I got older, I was allowed to drive the pickup and pull other cars around if needed, Grandpa’s patient voice guiding me in and out of tight spots. Once, as I was cautiously backing up near a dilapidated travel trailer, he reassured me that I was definitely not going to hit anything, a sly grin on his face, punctuated by a crunch. “Congratulations!” he said, laughing. “You just had your first accident!”

Grandpa is gone now, and I have returned to the old barn a few times. It has been completely untouched by time, the ooze of urban sprawl still far away from here. My old fantasies are still hanging inside those tragic, rusting hulks, that haven’t moved an inch since before I was born, except in my mind. What was once a wonderland of opportunity now appeared to my grown eyes as a graveyard of cars awaiting rescue, with no more whistling filling up the empty space. I felt like a foreigner that had come to unearth ancient treasures of a lost civilization, or a deep sea diver with a flashlight, disturbing sunken shipwrecks, and prehistoric creatures that had never seen the light of day. Headlights peered out at me from under tarps, and the vacant sockets where headlights had once been now looked lifelessly off into nowhere at all. Cars were huddled in corners in small groups, and looked like they no longer wished to be disturbed.

Then, the rest of my family arrives. I hear them laughing and giggling. Grandma throws open the big, double doors, and sunlight floods into the barn, illuminating the shades of turquoise, maroon, and gold still clinging to fenders and doors. Chrome scripts like Roadmaster, Thunderbird, and Golden Hawk still glint, hubcaps sparkle, and tailfins rise in defiance of age. My younger brothers and sisters jump into the ’37 sedan, all four doors opening and slamming, and pretend they’re driving full speed ahead. I grin, hop onto the running boards, and spray a mist of make-believe bullets out in front of us at the cops waiting just ahead. Then I jump inside, “Whew! That was close!” And just behind the laughter, I can hear a faint, slightly out of tune whistle.