Oldsmobiles and Mom
On Thursday, April 29, 2004, the last Oldsmobile rolled of the assembly line in Lansing, Michigan.
Today’s cars continue to use the “platform” technology perfected by the Big 3 American car companies as several models across brand shared axles, fenders and other components. Remember, Marisa Tormei’s comparison of GM models from the witness stand in Cousin Vinny? In the heyday of General Motors, while every brand – Cadillac, Pontiac, Buick – shared parts, they were also well known for some of their unique components.
Growing up, we had a mid-60s burgandy red, Oldsmobile Cutlass Station Wagon and my mom drove the hell out of that car. My brother’s first car was a hot and beautiful fire engine red, ’66 Olds Cutlass Couple. I loved that car and was so jealous of him. My dad said, if you put anything less than 100,000 miles on an Olds engine you’ve abused it. Its heart was a strong, four-barrel, 350-V-8 – the kind my dad referred to – and you couldn’t pull away from any intersection without leaving rubber.
When you tromped down on the accelerator to pass, the entire car leaped up as if you were going to fly over the vehicle you were subduing. Maybe that’s why the Oldsmobile emblem was a rocket.
With great media fanfare in Lansing, car enthusiasts, GM executives and workers, local politicians were all bemoaning the loss of a storied brand and the changes it would cause in their collective lives. But, in small Southwest Michigan town events with less attention were unfolding and they would change me in ways I never thought possible.
My day started with an early morning phone call in my Duluth, Minnesota hotel. My father weeping so hard he could barely speak.
The day before, I learned of my mother’s hospitalization in a similar tearful call. When I spoke to her, she discouraged me from cancelling my business trip to come see her. She’d be home by the weekend and I should plan to visit her then. As soon as the wheels went up on the plane, I knew something wasn’t right. My dad’s call and tears confirmed the feeling in my gut.
The next call woke my office manager as I told her, “Get me the hell out of here, I don’t care what it costs!” Next, siblings telling them, “Get home.” Then, to the small town hospital’s operator and instead of being transferred to the CCU, I ended up in the President’s Office and Linda Bennett, answered. See, Linda was the hospital President’s Executive Assistant and was a close friend of my mom and this kind of shit only happens in small towns. She quickly transferred me to the CCU and the nurse’s first question was – Where are you, honey? Your mom is very sick.
I packed, went to my clients, informed them of my need to return to Michigan and by late morning I was in the air, but behind schedule.
On the ground in Minneapolis, I raced with luggage in tow to my connecting flight as my call to the CCU was surreal. In the background, I heard the hospital staff running a code while the nurse handed the phone to my dad back to the nurse, to the doctor, to my dad, to the nurse, to the doctor who was encouraging me to encourage my dad to do a DNR.
It was like I was there and I wasn’t. Like the sound waves through the phone had transported me like the rays from a room on the Starship Enterprise.
I yelled at the gate agent to hold the door and as the last passenger on the plane, I stepped from the jetway to the cabin, as a howl from my dad was followed by silence and then a nurse informing me of my mom’s transition to the triumphant church.
She had a heart so filled with love that anyone would tell you that it was more powerful than anything Oldsmobile could manufacture, even its heyday. But, she didn’t make it to 71 years and I wonder what would have been the equivalent of 100,000 miles. Yet, the nearly 600 miles that separated me from the events that day and the regretful memories, burn in my soul like the rubber my brother’s Cutlass left at every intersection.