Writing prompts

My daughter gave me a journal and a jar filled with a writing prompts for Christmas last year. Today, I decided I needed to write and took the journal, some of the prompts, and my favorite pen, to my favorite coffee shop.

Prompt: Our childhood car

The seat covers were probably leather, fabric would have burned differently. I was 4 or 5, my sister was 7 or 8. We were with our Mom in the Packard (or some other boat car - boat as in big). I have a recollection of standing in the back seat - not on the seat but standing with my hands on the front seat. There were no seat belts then, no restraints unless an adult was in the back seat with you. The possibilities were wide open for playing with or tormenting siblings. I was the youngest at that time so my role was as the tormented one. But there were times of collaboration between my sister and I when we were together on errands with Mom or at the skating park with Dad.

One such time was when Mom had some errand to run. My sister and I had to go with her in the car, but either could not or did not want to go inside with her. There were not any toys in the car. So while we waited for Mom to come back to the car, we had to devise some entertainment. I am sure it was my sister who did the devising. I was merely the agent. She was in the front seat and I was standing in the back. She discovered that the car cigarette lighter worked when the car was turned off.

So, now we had something to entertain us. As we were too young to smoke, some creativity was required in what to do with the cigarette lighter. My sister was old enough to know that open fires in cars were not a good idea and likely to incur some unknown punishment.

Our parents were non-violent people, so spanking, while not explicitly ruled out, was certainly not expected and extremely rare. The punishments were typically unspecified prior to receiving them. The fear of the unknown greatly outweighed any threat of spanking.

There we were, a working cigarette lighter, no interest in smoking or fires, and no wood to practice wood burning designs. But there, right in front of me was a canvas waiting for something. The top and backside of the front seat were the perfect canvas for cigarette lighter art. The leather did not burn like paper would have. Placing the cigarette lighter on the leather resulted in a nice circular burn, etched permanently on the seat. Perhaps if I were 12 or 15 I would have made some recognizable picture. Or perhaps some very regrettable recognizable design. But at 4 or 5, I had yet to develop a specific artistic bent. Impressionist or abstract would have been my choice if I had known enough to articulate my artistic tastes. But these ideas were not part of my childhood and my abstract impressionist creations were not received with any great sense of awe.

So what I lacked in artistic skill I had to make up with volume. In this case, the circular patterns on the seat. Random placement of concentric circles burned in black on brown leather seat was the limit of our artistic sensibilities. It was like branding cattle without hurting the cow or angering the bull. The result, some 50 or 100 or more burns, carefully placed, with care taken not to make accidental burns in other parts of the car or on each other. Our creation complete, we only waited an appreciative audience.

My memory is actually blank on the actual events and the critical review of our work. But I do remember the burns on the seat of the car and no burns on my own seat. So, it could be that I was merely an innocent bystander. I do have some vague recollection that there was a reaction that was not appreciative of our art work and that some significant punishment was incurred.

[Note: No fact checking was performed in the writing of this. I believe it is essentially correct, but would you trust a memory of a four year old regarding an event that took place in 1958 or 1959. My siblings may choose to comment on the veracity of the story. Some long suppressed memory of mine or some confession from a sibling may alter the details (e.g. I may have been framed). But the image of cigarette lighter burns on the seat remains seared in my memory.]

[Note 2: My dad loved cars so my selection of a childhood car was from a fairly long list of what are now some classic cars.]