'64 FORD FAIRLANE

"...and he made as though he would have gone further." (from Luke 24:28)

This morning as I drove from Canton, MA to Westminster, MA (about 65 miles one way) I had an interesting "travel companion" for about half of the drive. On Route 128 (also known as Interstate 85) in Needham, I noticed a classic car of the sixties as I glanced into my rear view mirror. At first, the car was too far back for me to tell the make. At a distance, it almost looked like a 1968 full-sized Chevrolet. The car moved into the passing lane, and came alongside my car, then moved in front of me. In fact, it was a 1964 Ford Fairlane. The Ford was metallic green with a white roof and white trim. In the '50s and very early '60s Fairlanes were full-sized Fords, but for 1962 through 1967 they were mid-sized cars. Well, cars got SO big in those days, that the mid-sized Fairlane is almost as big as a full-sized car of today.

Boy, did that car "take me back"!

Can it really be forty-one years ago when I was learning to drive?! In those days, I was learning on a 1963 Dodge Dart, and there were cars like that '64 Fairlane all over the roads! A Ford Fairlane has particular significance beyond the usual nostalgia, however. My late brother Eddie was VERY partial to Ford products. Over the years, he had a black 1962 Ford Fairlane, a red 1966 Mercury Comet Caliente, and a metallic green 1970 Ford Thunderbird. At classic car shows, you see a lot of Ford Mustangs of the 1960s and a lot of the big Ford Galaxies of that era, but not too many mid-sized Fairlanes. But a Fairlane was an "Eddie" car, so that was kind of special.

Our cars drove in tandem onto the Mass Pike (Interstate 90) and then onto Interstate 495. We each took the same exit off 495 onto the beautiful country road known as Route 117 through Bolton and Lancaster. THAT'S "apple country" and some very beautiful country, at that. It turns out that at the Lancaster Fairgrounds they were having a huge classic car show. The Fairlane turned in.

I was truly sad to see it go. For thirty miles I was day dreaming about Eddie and learning to drive and life in the 1960s and 1970s. In the words of a famous song:

"Could it be that life was oh so simple then? Or has time rewritten every line?"

I spent the NEXT few miles after the Fairlane turned off thinking about the symbolism of that car today. I'm a guy who hates change, but change is inevitable and is a huge part of life. I'm actually having a sort of a 1964 Ford Fairlane experience right now. Since June, I have been living at my sister's in Canton- in the house I grew up in. It's all very different from what it was in the 1960s and 1970s. In those days, the oversized Cape Cod house was painted red. The paint inevitably faded and peeled,and the house constantly needed to be repainted. My father was the kind of guy who had "stuff" left all over the place and there were always a lot of unfinished projects. In those days, there was a hardtop play area in the back yard. As little kids, we rode tricycles there.

The hardtop play area is gone. It's all grass now. The house is sided in yellow vinyl. Everything inside has been done over, really nice. It's very 21st Century. Even so, I see tricycles and kids playing jump rope and my father in work clothes working on some project, and my mom baking a cake, and all sorts of other scenes in my mind all the time as I'm staying at that residence.

It's kind of nice to be "in tandem" with that house for awhile, as I was in tandem with the Fairlane today. But, for scores of very obvious reasons, this living arrangement is temporary. It's not something I really chose any more than linking up with the Fairlane is something I chose. Like this morning's trip, it's kind of different, and kind of neat, and kind of cool, but it's just for a brief season.

A future lies ahead and like precious memories of the past, that future is a gift from God.