Manhoodification

My first truck had 30 inch tires. It was a black Jeep Commanche. It was love at first sight, at least for a 16 year old. My identity was interwoven with the tires, the bumper stickers and the bucket seats. I had various trucks from the time I was 16 until the ripe old age of 30. I lived in the campershell, explored Baja, hauled lumber, and carried friends to protests across desert landscapes. Then came kids. Camille at One sitting in the front seat of my beat up Nissan truck seemed, well, impracticle. So Kim and I eventually bought our first New Ride. It was a shiny black CRV half truck and half sedan. It was a mini SUV with better gas mileage. It had clearance for Baja surf trips and Borrego camping trips. It was a perfect compromise between manhood and pragmitism. It wasn't a mini van. It wasn't a gas guzzling SUV. It was perfect...

Well, until we logged 100,000 miles in 4 and a half years. Some environmentalists. When we sold our CRV I was at home, sick and alone with Camille and Estelle and a potential buyer from Rancho Bernardo, buying his daughter her first vehicle. Keeping the vehicular identity complex syndrome alive and well for the next generation. He was there for 2 and half hours and began showing obvious signs and symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Well, he bought our CRV and our girls said their goodbyes by kissing and hugging their car. The nice family waved as they drove away with our families memories stitched and soiled into the upholestry.

We stared at our empty drive way. Small beads of sweat mixed with panic, excitement, fear and emptiness began to appear like rain drops on my skin. It was time.

We grabbed a soccer ball and played a round in our empty new concrete soccer field. The next day our fabulous friends Sarah and BJ drove over our new experimental "shared" vehicle. It was a white sedan missing a hub cap with a Woman for Obama sticker pasted on the window. My manhoodification was exposed. Sarah's empathetic radar came to the rescue as she proceeded to gently peel off the Women for Obama sticker - what a friend. Not that I don't like Obama. Who knows he probably has suffered from vehicular identity complex syndrome as well.

I love our new shared car. I love that it stands for everything I believe in. I love that it has everything to do with our "new identity". I love that it is crappier and less manhoodified. I love that it is a functional vehicle that is an experiement in communal living and environmental awareness. I love that people are telling us that it won't work. (They said that about our family owning 1 car for the last 5 years). I love that it will be a challenge. I love that this concept might spread through churches, synagogues, ghettoes, suburbs, colleges, high schools and neighborhoods across America and beyond. Go ahead. Try something new. You can start by sharing your soccerball and oranges with your neighbors. Keep the momentum.