The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.

It's A Guy Thing, Or Is It?

by Dessa Rodeffer
Editor/Publisher

1 August 2001

With the 3rd annual Fred Gibb Memorial Car Show this weekend, I think it is appropriate to mention my first set of wheels - a 1964 burgandy Chevrolet Impala from Fred Gibb Chevrolet dealership in La Harpe.

It wasn't eight months old when the 1965s came out and his show room sported a beautiful black Chevrolet Super Sport convertible, with a white vinyl top. It had black bucket seats and a four speed on the floor, with a 360 horse engine. It became ours.

Some things you wish you could have kept, just to enter in the car show. I could sit beside it in my lawn chair with music playing from the 60s. People from my generation would remember those fun-loving care-free days.

Jerry Burford got me thinking about why people get so caught up in their cars when he said: "No matter how bad things get, you can always go sit in your car. You can be anything you want to be, and go any where you want to go. It'll take you back to better times."

I had asked Steve Albert President of the Maple City Street Machines why he liked cars so much, and he said to me, "It's a guy thing."

I guess it usually is guys showing their cars. Women are usually showing off their homes, their babies, or busy with running the household, but I can remember many times when the car has been a lifesaver, and sometimes a good place to just relax and think things through.

I suppose many view truck drivers or other such professionals who are driving most of the day, as quite stressed, tired, and bored with it all, but I think more the opposite is true.

They must find it relaxing. They have time to reflect, listen to music, plan their tomorrows, even put distance between them and a bad situation, at least for awhile.

It can be an escape, which is all right if used as a reality check to get things straight in your mind. But it can also be a way of never making things better if you only escape and never fix the problem.

If men are really from Mars, the book says, their escape (to the car or in the car) is necessary for them to regain their autonomy. Then they are able to come home and be more caring as males.

This is the time women (from Venus) get in cars, escape with friends and shop. They enjoy the commuting, but better still, the conversing.