Current Poll
| Men are born with a passion for fast vehicles |
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| Opinion | |||
| Written by Larry McGee | |||
| Wednesday, 28 January 2009 09:00 | |||
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I was driving along a residential street the other day when I saw a small boy, no more than 6 years old, careening along the sidewalk on a tricycle. He was going as fast as his little legs could push the pedals, his head bent low between the handlebars, his elbows sticking out like wings. This little demon wasn’t going anywhere except to the corner so he could turn around and come back, but he was getting there as fast as he could. There’s something about wheels that turns a lot of us into demons. It’s a disease, or perhaps in our genes because, you see, it is the male of the species that is affected by wheels. I don’t know what it is, but men have an obsession with the automobile. Every young man can’t wait for the day that he can crawl behind the wheel of the family sedan, alone. He has to see how fast that sucker will run. Once we have the answer, we are not satisfied. We have this compulsion to buy our own wheels. Not just any wheels, but those that satisfy an innate desire within us. I used to think this drive was a result of growing up during the days of muscle cars. When you look back at the ’50s and ’60s, you know what I’m talking about. This was an era like no other. There were “Hot Rod” movies. There were songs written about cars: “Ballad of Thunder Road,” “My 409,” “Hey Little Cobra,” “G.T.O.,” “Tell Laura I Love Her” and “Little Deuce Coupe.” The “Rod & Custom” magazine was first created during this time. Drive-in movie theaters were in their heyday. A&W root beer drive-ins were built to accommodate the hot rod drivers, as was the Dairy Queen. If I mention Route 66 or fender skirts, moon caps, rolls/pleat, and fins, images of past loves return. Those loves were spinning wheels. It didn’t end there. Young men today still have the same desire as yesterday. I was driving on 135th Street the other day. I had my truck recently removed from a car wash where I spent an unusual amount of time polishing it. I pulled up to a stop light and cast a glance to the driver of the truck in the lane next to mine. We began a contest of gassing engines. As the light turned green, we both floor-boarded our trucks and raced side by side to the next light, where we both skidded to a stop. Again making eye contact, I knew the challenge was still on. With the green light, a semblance of reality entered my feeble mind, and I let him move ahead and rather than face him down. I turned right at the next light. My race that day was with a teenage driver, but age had nothing to do with it. It was an urge that all males experience. Where was I going in such a hurry? What made me do that? If I am walking down the street, I don’t feel a need to hurry up and pass someone walking ahead of me, only when wheels are involved. Why do we feel a competitive urge to pass everyone in front of us? We’ve all experienced being passed by someone on the interstate weaving his way in and out of traffic just to gain a couple of car lengths. Men feel an urge to catch up to him. Or just driving along at the posted speed limit, we come upon a car driving at our same speed. We have to pass rather than run behind. And if our competitor speeds up we speed up. We don’t get off the gas and let him go. We feel triumphant when we win and defeated when some idiot passes us exceeding the speed limit. I don’t try to beat anyone to an empty seat in the theater as I would try to beat them to a parking place at Walmart. Day after day, I am a normal average, everyday kind of law-abiding citizen … except when I get behind the wheel of a car. It sure would have been a different world if the wheel had never been invented. For one thing, someone I cut off in Olathe wouldn’t hate me today.
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