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Driving Miss Daisy

We recently bought a white Ford Escape which I named Miss Daisy so now, I'm "Driving Miss Daisy." The practice of naming cars goes back to my childhood. The "Betsy Lou" was a 1938 blue Buick whose mileage my father measured in trips to the moon. We were on our second lunar trip when Betsy Lou dropped something large from her undercarriage in a nearby street and her astronaut days were over for good.

My brother inherited our aunt's 1936 Oldsmobile which he had painted fire engine red. He named her "Katrina" in honor of our Aunt Kathleen and outfitted her with an "aooga" horn which he delighted in using frequently especially when passing a pretty girl.

It is no wonder that we name our cars. After all, their engine power is measured in horsepower, and certainly all horses had and have names. You wouldn't have expected an unnamed gray horse to pull the family wagon to church, but Dolly was fully capable of doing so.

Cars with names become part of the family. In our annual summer treks to visit relatives in the Midwest, we all worried about Betsy Lou's thirst. Even after the contents of the water bags draped on the hood had been emptied into her, she was likely to overheat. Asleep on her spacious backseat floor, my brother and I would overhear the telltale hissing and our parents' "oh no." Then we would have to let her rest by the side of the road until she was cool enough to take in more water.

Cooling systems have vastly improved in the last seventy years. Our greatest fear for Miss Daisy is that someone will scratch her in a parking lot. My husband makes sexual innuendos about not parking her too close to big trucks, thus affirming in my mind her pure feminine being.

Cars with names have special talents. Whether it is The Bat mobile, Car 54, or the talented Kitt from Knight Rider, named cars take on human personas. They're there to help us, not to frustrate us. They're on your side. If they can talk to you, so much the better. I do talk to Miss Daisy but only when I'm alone with her. Once you think of your car as a teammate, mechanical problems evoke sympathy rather than frustration well, I would like to think so.

So as Miss Daisy sets out on her career of being the family car, I hope that birth on an assembly line will lead to a life of happy travels. I may think that I'm Driving Miss Daisy, but really she's driving us.

Learn more about this author, Cynthia Wall.
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