I never really thought of my dad as a car enthusiast, although looking back he had some good cars. A Jeep CJ5 and a Camaro, a B21o A TJ, and most notably three Miatas – two red NAs and one green NC.
He loved them and tried to teach me to put a stick into one of them. After selling the first one, he told us, “My mom made me sell it because it was so interesting.” Not nice, looking back!
He always had a Miata or was thinking about buying another. He still talks about buying another one when he’s sober, fantasizing about one day driving again.
I moved to Traverse City a few years ago to be closer to him. It really is the perfect place for a Miata; Lots of winding, lonely roads through the woods, endless wide beaches. I’m now the same age he was when he bought his first Miata. I tried to imagine the inside of his head as he started his job teaching 8th grade history, stopping for beers with friends, cursing Aretha Franklin on the way home to me, my siblings, my mother.
It’s impossible to know what it was really like for him, what he felt or thought during those days. Last year I bought him a very nice NA Miata model to keep in the house, but he couldn’t see it very well and probably couldn’t remember anything. I should really take him out for a ride.
By Rory Caroll
