The Species with a Call: How We Find Purpose for Our Lives Through the Power of What We Love

PART ONE

Confirming Our Essential Selves

From a ’56 Chevy, Questions in Quasars, and Rock ’n Roll to Blessings Tumbling Down

ONE

The Gospel According to a 1956 Chevy

O N A COOL OCTOBER AFTERNOON in 1969 I stood at the curb of my high school parking lot enjoying the scene of yellow and orange maple leaves flickering in a light breeze. It was around 5:00 and most of students had gone home for the day, except for students in three different groups.

The football team had just ended practice, and as I stood at the curb, I saw them emerging from the side door of the athletic building. They were big guys, muscular and confident, especially Ralph Dickerson, one of the stars. He emerged from the door and shaded his eyes with his hand as he looked toward where the second group was breaking up their practice—the cheerleaders. Reena Todd, one of the cheerleaders and recently crowned beauty queen, saw him and waved. She hugged a couple of her cheerleader friends and bounded up the sidewalk, blond pony tail bouncing in rhythm to her gait. She kissed Ralph on the cheek and then arms around waists, they headed toward his red GTO.

A shot of envy spiced my gut at the sight. I had a profound crush on Reena, but everyone knew she was Ralph’s girl, and the two of them took no notice of me, standing on the curb waiting for my father to come and pick me up. I had been part of the third student group to have practiced that afternoon—the orchestra. And while Ralph had his arm around Reena, I had my arm around my cello. While Ralph and company clashed in muscle and might on the gridiron and Reena and company danced on the sidelines, I had been on the stage in the theater, bowing the supportive role to Grieg’s Ist Piano Concerto in A minor. Ralph would throw himself at the defensive line on Friday night. I would draw a bow across my strings on Saturday night and the crowd would be minuscule compared to those underneath the Friday night lights.

Ralph’s long blond hair glistened as he opened the door for Reena and she slid into the front seat of his GTO. I saw her scootch sideways on the seat so that when Ralph got in on the driver’s side, their shoulders nearly fused. They kissed deeply and I felt weak and exposed standing there looking on. A girl like that would never notice a skinny cello player. Besides, I didn’t have my driver’s license yet and to top everything off, I was waiting for my dad to come and pick me up. I had no brawn. I had no car. I had no chance. I heaved a sigh.

Then I saw a patch of blue moving beyond the maples out on Lawyer’s Road. It was my dad in his 1956 Chevy. I watched as my dad drove the long straight driveway and turn into the lot. A beam of yellow afternoon sunlight warmed his stubble studded face. He had the window down, left arm hooked over the door, sleeves rolled up high to reveal a mechanic’s biceps, and sucking on a stogy that had gone out probably four miles previously. He stopped in front of me and hooked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate that I was to put the cello in the trunk. I slammed the trunk down, took a last look at Ralph and Reena, still one silhouette in the GTO, and slid in beside dad and the aroma of old cigar.

Dad pulled the ’56 into a tight u-turn, and headed back out the way he’d come. We stopped at the exit and pulled out on Lawyer’s Road. Dad asked me how practice had gone and I said it was fine. He asked when the concert was and I started to tell him when I noticed him staring in the rearview. He worked his stogy from the right corner of his lips to the left, pulled it out of his mouth and spat a brown stream out the window. He crammed it back into his mouth and growled, That pretty boy behind me’s gettin’ me MAD.

I looked over my shoulder and there, no more than a half car-length behind us was Ralph’s red GTO. I could see him and Reena sitting so close together it looked like a two-headed driver. Ralph’s hair blew in the breeze through his open window and I saw him reach up and take a cigarette out of his mouth, something I thought his coach probably wouldn’t approve. As they wove back and forth behind us, barely a half car length away, waiting for oncoming traffic to clear, I could see my father’s face turning red. I could see his jaw bones working as he chewed his stogy. My dad hated tailgaters.

Oncoming traffic cleared and I heard the baritone crescendo of the GTO as Ralph whipped out to pass us. He glided up rather easily beside us and I saw Reena looking at us sort of sideways as she tossed a little hair back and sat a little straighter in the seat. Ralph had sucked in his chin and was reaching up for his cigarette, a designed move to emphasize that he was cool. Their rear bumper was just about even with our front tires when it happened.

Actually, Ralph had no way of knowing what he was dealing with. My father had bought the ’56 as a second vehicle and had taken it to a friend of his who built small track race cars. They’d taken out the 283 power glide and replaced it with a 409 four-in-the-floor with a Holly four-barrel carburetor. They’d stiffened the suspension and installed rack and pinion steering. My dad had left the mufflers on the exhaust system because he didn’t like noise and had mounted white-walled tires because they were relatively inexpensive, both of which gave the car a decidedly granny feel. But if you paid attention to the low rumble when it idled you would suspect that if revved up, this engine would register 9 on the Richter scale. My dad’s friend had done a masterful job of turning a perfectly domestic looking ’56 Belair into a monster.

We had been going about 40 miles per hour when Ralph got almost past us. That’s when dad stood on it. Blue smoke erupted from around our rear tires and we shot forward like a navy jet from a catapult. I felt a powerful shove against my chest as I sank into the seat cushion. A loud, low growl ground just beyond the dashboard. Trees, mailboxes, paper boxes, telephone poles, fence posts all blurred as they shot past the window in an accelerating haze. My hair blew straight back. I don’t know how many seconds it took us, but when I looked over at the speedometer, it was needling just past 95. We plunged down a long straight-away toward a shallow swale where Lawyer’s Road crossed a creek. About a quarter mile up the opposite hill where the road climbed back out of the creek run, Lawyer’s Road suddenly leveled off and only then did dad hit the brakes to bring it back down to the speed limit. I looked back over my shoulder and Ralph’s GTO was a red blotch in the distance still descending the slope toward the creek.

I was elated! I looked at my father. I can’t believe you did that! Man, that was cool!

My dad’s shoulders were shaking, he was laughing so hard. I couldn’t resist it. I just couldn’t resist it!

That was GREAT, I said as I looked back, now unable to see Ralph because of the crest of the hill.

That’s when my dad quit laughing and said, Not a word to your mother, you hear?!

Oh, no sir! No sir.

Of course not. This was a moment of true male bonding, a moment just between us macho, fast flying, risk-taking men. I wasn’t about to reveal this to my mother. And I meant it. I settled back into the seat and I fancied myself driving that ’56 to school after I turned 16. I’d save my money working as a bag-boy at a local supermarket. I’d buy a couple of glass packs¹ for the exhaust system so I’d sound like an earthquake rumbling through the parking lot. I’d put on black walled, wide track, low profile tires and chrome reverse wheels, and my heart beat faster when I imagined the first day I drove it to school. Nothing would be more satisfying than pulling up beside Ralph in his GTO and watching his eyes bug out when he heard the sound of my 409 growling like a caged lion beneath the hood. Reena Todd would slide just a little away from him on the seat to get a better look at me and my ’56. She’d want to sit beside ME in MY car.

As we cruised through the autumn evening, I thought, Wow! Reena and Ralph had seen ME in that power machine! As dad turned from Lawyer’s Road onto Idlewild Road toward our subdivision, I felt pride well up. Pride in my dad, and a sense of power. My dad kept chuckling. Did you see the look on his face? He tossed the stogy across the opposite lane. His mouth was hanging open! And we laughed again.

I said, Man, I can’t wait to get my hands on this thing!

That’s when dad’s laughter tailed off and we drove the rest of the way home listening to the sound of the wind through the open windows and the deep throated hum from underneath the hood. I hooked my right arm out the window and grinned into the breeze. All was well with the world.

Then, in March of 1970, one month prior to my 16th birthday, dad sold the ’56 Chevy.

I discovered this when I came home one day from some activity, the nature of which I’ve totally forgotten. But I still feel today the sinking sensation in my chest I felt then. Sitting in the driveway where that ’56 used to sit was a 1964 Chevy II Nova station wagon. In case you aren’t familiar with that line of GM automobiles from the mid-60’s, the Chevy II Nova station wagon looked as if some engineers in Detroit were sitting around a table one day and said, Let’s see what a car would look like if we put four tires on a cardboard box. The Chevy II sitting in our driveway where the ’56 should have been had an in-line four cylinder engine. It barely pulled the hill up our driveway in front of our house. It sounded like a squeaky sowing machine beneath the pale green paint. The narrow, white-wall, bias-ply tires finished off one of the most uninspiring automobiles a 16 year-old North Carolina redneck boy could possibly imagine—or dread. Looking back, I have no recollection what happened to it. I didn’t care. Still don’t.

But I can remember standing in the driveway looking at that artless piece of junk and setting my feelings aside. I grudgingly admitted that this boxy station wagon was more in keeping with my family’s character than the ’56. We were more the card-board-box-on-wheels kind of family. We went to church twice on Sundays, every Wednesday evening for dinner, prayer meeting, and Bible study, and I went to the church recreation center every Thursday evening for the boys mission group. It was a safe and proper life that conformed to reputable standards and molded character, as my mother often said.

That was, indeed, a Chevy II Nova family.

We were NOT a ’56 Chevy family. No 409 powerhouse for us. That was too dangerous. Too expensive. Too risky. ’56 Chevy kind of people didn’t attend church regularly, if they knew Jesus at all, and their boys drank beer, were sexually promiscuous, and didn’t attend church mission groups. Oh sure, those boys had bigger muscles, stood taller, and commanded the girls’ admiration, but they were headed to no good end. I tried my best to accept this assessment of the world. I did my best to acknowledge that we were wiser with our Chevy-II-Nova-station-wagon kind of life.

After I reached adulthood and was well into a pastoral career, my dad and I would wax nostalgic about former cars we’d owned. Otherwise inarticulate North Carolina rednecks can become downright verbose when talking about their cars and the subject of our vehicles yielded about the only conversational fluidity my dad and I ever achieved—that and his memories of his World War II service. And always—always—when we’d remember that ’56 Chevy, my dad would grow almost contemplative and sigh. More than once he said, I wish I still had that car. He never longed for the station wagon.

Now, I can appreciate dad not wanting his hot-headed, immature, testosterone-driven adolescent son proving his worth with his right foot rammed through the throttle of a 409 powerhouse. In fact, when I told the story at his funeral, I lauded his willingness to risk my profound anger at him rather than pleasing me and risk letting me kill myself. I spun it as dad giving up something he loved for the sake of the well-being of his son. The congregation roared with laughter as my mom stared on slack jawed. I had obeyed my father to the end and had never said a word to my mother—until that moment. And while I honestly believe that the exponentially greater insurance rates had the greatest influence on his getting rid of what amounted to a drag racer, I’m also certain that his love for his son’s life had an influence on the sale, as well.

Nevertheless, why did my dad long for the ’56 and laugh when we remembered the station wagon? That ’56 was powerful. It represented autonomy and self-determination. It gave you the option of defining your own pace and direction and thus allowed you a measure of independence. It spoke of success and adventure, and with its beautiful design, it possessed an artistic and poetic quality. And yes, it was sexy! All those traits spoke of an energetic and engaged kind of living, an interesting and joyful life, zest and abundance.

Of course, that kind of power involves tremendous risk. What about the cops? What about the gas? What about the insurance? What about going too fast and losing control? And besides all that, it sends the wrong message. What will the neighbors think?

But that’s the kind of car dad remembered with fondness and longing. That was the car he loved.

What did the 1964 Chevy II Nova station wagon represent? Its tiny little engine meant safer movement, guaranteed. You’d run with the pack freed from the temptation to pull out and pass. You’d absorb the safety of numbers, conform to the domestication of mass culture. Yes, the station wagon’s straight plain lines and boxy design allowed for more storage space. But it was decidedly unpoetic, and unartistic. It had no sex appeal at all. The car could generate no sense of adventure or suggest independence. It spoke of conformity to vague notions of propriety. The station wagon said that you’d accumulate lots of stuff and carry it with you. The neighbors would accept you better and respect you more in the station wagon.

My dad loved the ’56. He settled for the station wagon.

My dad settled for a station wagon life, too, all the while longing to live a ’56 Chevy life. He accepted the notion that a station wagon life made more sense and that a ’56 Chevy life was simply frivolous at best, too dangerous at worst. Honestly, though, what sounds more energizing to you? A four-cylinder, pea-green station wagon which requires a down hill slope to get around cyclists, or an electric blue ’56 Chevy humming along a country road with the capability of blasting around any obstacle that gets in its way? In other words, what appeals to you more? A life conforming to