Morris
February 15, 2011, 8:58 pm
My mother was an Anglophile. A child of the Seifert and Bronenkant families, her lineage was one hundred per cent German. Nevertheless, everyone she met was convinced she had just stepped off a boat from the British Isles.
She adored everything English; the Queen, British literature, tea, Gilbert and Sullivan, Wedgewood and Royal Doulton. The British humor magazine Punch graced our coffee table along with a green tin of Pontefract Cakes, an odd black candy stamped with little castles.
When I was seventeen, my mum persuaded my father to abandon his beloved Ford Motor Company and buy a British car, a Morris Minor convertible.
My father was a wonderful man, but he was completely unmechanical. He was also my mother’s chauffeur as she had given up driving. Unfortunately, the only way anyone could keep a Morris running was to keep a mechanic in the trunk.
After a year of complete frustration, my father bought a Ford and gave me the Morris Minor. I was sincerely grateful to get a car. But keeping that car moving was a nightmare. Its distributor cap was on the bottom of the engine. If I drove through a puddle of any size, the car died and had to be towed. Being stranded became a way of life, especially in Spring.
I was saved by love. My true love’s father was an ace auto mechanic and a good man. The Morris spent hours in his back yard being dried out and tuned up.
For our wedding present, my father-in-law generously gave us an almost new car. He had rebuilt a vehicle that had been totaled two weeks after being purchased.
Blessedly for all, it was a Ford.
1 Comment for this entry
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Greetings and welcome...
The Suitcase Lady Blog is now in its thirteenth year. I am obviously a believer in these words from E. B. White. "We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry." Thank you for reading the writing that I delight in doing.
Posts
March 5th, 2011 on 2:13 PM
What happened to poor, rejected, Morris?