The Measure of Things

I didn’t always understand my Aunt Barbara’s logic when I was young. She had a way of saying things that sounded like they came from a place older than she was. “Own a crappy car, but keep a nice home,” she’d say, sipping instant coffee from a chipped mug that read World’s Best Mom, the “B” long since worn off.

At the time, I figured she didn’t like driving, which was true–she once hit the mailbox and claimed it “came out of nowhere.”

She lived just outside Fortuna, in the Compton Heights area–where you could hear the bees arguing in the lavender. Her house wasn’t big—three bedrooms, one bath, and a kitchen with linoleum. But it was tidy, smelled like lemon oil and cinnamon, and the couch was never without a fresh quilt folded over the back.

Now, the car—oh, that car. A 1965 Pontiac GTO, in mint condition. The upholstery, a blue leather, hotter than a hornet’s sting on a summer day, with a 389 cubic-inch V8 engine that rumbled every time she turned the ignition.

She named the car “Mabel,” by the way. She said it sounded like a woman who’d seen some things and wasn’t easily impressed. Perhaps it was an unrecognized hint.

My brother and I would visit her and Uncle Adam. We usually spent a week, maybe two, at our grandparents, if we didn’t drive Grampa Bill crazy.

One weekend, Mabel gave out. Right there in the driveway, with a noise that made the neighbor’s dog run for the hills.

I thought that would be it—maybe she’d upgrade. But no, Aunt Barbara just shrugged and said to Adam and me, “Come on, boys, we’re walking to the store.”

She didn’t even look back. The car was gone when we returned, which puzzled me for a while.

“I still don’t understand where Mabel went,” I whispered to Adam that night as we lay on the mattress of the foldout couch.

“Maybe it’s like the tooth fairy,” he answered.

I was old enough to know better but kept my mouth shut.

Come Christmas time, I was expecting to see a new car in the drive. Instead, there was Mabel, good as ever. A new starter and a patched radiator, and somehow still clinging to life.

“Spent $300 fixing her,” she said. “Better than $3,000 for something that’ll just break down in a fancier place.”

Thinking on the past, I believe her message was not about cars or homes. It was about knowing what mattered and believing in peace over worry.

I still think about her when I pass a GTO and smile, half expecting to see her behind the wheel, humming Patsy Cline and tapping the steering wheel with a hand that smelled like Ivory soap.

And maybe, in some way, I do.