My green eyes were feeling blue.

I sat at a table with friends. We talked about whatever it is that men talk about.

I whined about those irritating blue headlights. I hate to whine, but that’s what men are good at.

A couple of nights earlier, I’d been driving a rural, two-lane highway. It was late and the car just ahead of me must have had its lights on bright. An oncoming car flashed its brights in retaliation. They were the blue kind. The rims of my eyeglasses melted. The driver hit his high beams again, blinding everyone within a mile. People watching TV in their living rooms suffered from temporary blindness.

I was never sure what the law said about flashing bright lights until I read an article written by Sgt. Troy Christianson of the Minnesota State Patrol, who wrote, “According to M.S.S. 169.61, if you are within 1,000 feet of an oncoming vehicle, you must dim your lights. So, it would be against the law to put your high beams on, even if the oncoming vehicle has theirs on. The law also requires that drivers use low beams when following another vehicle at 200 feet or less.”

I grumbled to my amigos, “They ought to outlaw those cursed blue lights!”

I looked across the table at one of the other fellows. I could tell by the look on his face that his Buick was one of those blue-light specials.

Just then, a friend from Florida, home for a wedding, joined us. The discussion of the blue headlamps had been headed off at the pass.

I wonder how many headlights I’ve stared into? I’ve seen countless padiddles, cars with one darkened headlight. I’ve been driving a long time, having become a licensed driver at age 15. People who knew me wept for the world. My driving instructor told me, “I’ve taught you everything I know, and you still don’t know anything.”

I passed the driving test without my parallel parking making the news.

Father became Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen singing, “Son, you’re gonna drive me to drinkin’ if you don’t stop drivin’ that Hot Rod Lincoln.”

It’d be cool if I could remember the first car I ever rode in, but I can’t, and the cars I’ve owned have merged in my memory, whittled down to a Ponforchevplymbuictoyhonsuba. But I recall the first car I bought. The only things I’d still fit into from high school are that car and a scarf.

I’d inherited an ancient Pontiac. I should have kept it, but I fell in love with the sound of a squealing fan belt and traded it off for a 1957 Ford Fairlane named Fred.

As I drove away in a series of rattles and a cloud of blue smoke (the car was a heavy smoker), I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the guy who’d sold me the car doing a happy dance.

The Ford had some lemon color that served as a warning. Its hood was up more than it was down. It got great mileage by spending most of its road time being pushed or pulled. I washed and waxed it, but you can’t polish rust.

The car wasn’t anything to brag about. It acted up. I was no Mister Goodwrench, but I knew how to change oil, replace a fan belt, reform a padiddle and set the timing. I can’t do anything but look at an engine today because motor skills deteriorate with age. What I didn’t know was how to fasten a seatbelt. The car had none.

I once had two flat tires at the same time. I could change a tire both lickety and split, but one spare couldn’t replace two tires. Besides, it was flat. I admired the car’s courage for traveling on such tires.

I made the gas money needed to loop Main by loaning my report card to schoolmates who wanted to frighten their parents.

Would I have wanted a chauffer-driven Rolls-Royce or Bentley? Of course, I would have, but I’m glad I didn’t have one. I wouldn’t have met so many nice mechanics and tow truck drivers.

Thanks to a nonfunctioning odometer, I didn’t put a single mile on that Ford before I sold it to a stranger living two counties away.

If he’d glanced in his rearview mirror as he drove away in a series of rattles and a cloud of blue smoke (the car still smoked), he might have caught a glimpse of me doing a happy dance.

 

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.