Chariots of Steel

"Wish on everything. Old cars are good, especially pink ones. And stars of course. First stars and shooting stars."

Francesca Lia Block

A lot of us develop strong attachments to our cars and trucks, and to memories of specific ones from our past. We spend an awful lot of our time in them getting from here to there.

Some of my earliest memories are of an old 1950s Nash Rambler station wagon on my grandparents' farm. It was affectionately known as "The Gully Jumper." By the time I was old enough to remember riding in it, it was a well-used farm utility vehicle that my grandad would drive right out into the fields. I don't have any photos of it, but I swear I recall it being pink.

By the time I reached the age of twelve, my 14-year-old cousin would occasionally get permission to drive the two of us to the nearest town on an errand. In Kansas 14-year-olds can get a special permit to drive without an adult if the drive is related to farm work or they are getting to or from school.

I remember the freedom and excitement I felt the first time I was allowed on the road in a car without an “adult.”

Today old, abandoned cars and trucks are a familiar sight in most rural areas. If I see one I often reach for my camera. I feel in the depth of my soul that every one of them has a unique personality and could tell many tales if only they could speak. So I focus on the human details that remain—the coat hanger next to the driver’s seat of a discarded school bus, the makeshift slatted rails added to the bed of an old Ford truck, the bullet holes in the window of an old car that was likely last used for target practice.