eleven

when i was five my parents had this bright idea that they were sick of california, the high prices and the crowded neighborhoods. lured by the promise of a simpler life and being closer to my mom's relatives we packed up and moved across country to nashville. i remember the trip well as we caravaned an orange u-haul truck towing my dad's work truck, while following behind, my mom's yellow volvo. sometimes i got to ride in the u-haul cab with my dad as he worked the manual shifter on the highways and i'd sit up high and stare out at the world. and other times i'd be gazing out the front of the car looking at the ford truck with the added trailer lights.
nashville turned out to be a disaster. it was a cold autumn and winter for unprepared californians. both my mom and dad hated their new jobs which paid far less than the ones back home. and i had just begun kindergarten and was learning to read. when we arrived in our new neighborhood we discovered there was no kindergarten, and i was placed in pre-school with my little brother. the humanity.
our house was small, we felt isolated and it seemed like we were just marking time. and at one point (so my mom tells me) i came up to her with pleading eyes and said "will i ever be able to read?" needless to say we didn't last long as tennessee volunteers. within six months we were packing up and on our way back to cali. however the time was not a complete loss. one item i picked up in our brief stay there was this little race car. it originally had a red and white pull string so a small child could tow it along behind. but i was more interested in rear wheel drive and would carefully tuck the string into the driver's cockpit, and then get down real low so that i could watch the alternating piston action of this little four banger.

i loved this little race car and it captured my imagination with its big red wheels and tires, dual exhaust, roll bar, checkered flag on the front and the driver's classic 3/4 open face helmet. and this wasn't a man driving, it was a kid! it was me.
we packed it up and brought it back with us and i do seem to remember playing with it here, but as with all things i moved on and it disappeared. so many childhood things got donated over time to cousins and the children of my parents friends. and then one day my mom went to clean out a storage space unit and asked if i wanted to come and see if there was anything that belonged to me. there in one of the soggy boxes was the little race car - eleven. a gift from the past. i recently watched john frankenheimer's "grand prix" and was reminded how beautiful this era of auto racing was. it has all but slipped away now, but the memories live on through my little eleven. (oh and yes, i did learn to read) happy friday.