White Wagon

White Wagon:

My dad, Roger Wallace, Ph.D., had a very weird relationship with physical stuff. Things had to come in pairs, or sets, and the more features the better. If you couldn’t get the version with the most features, and then get more than one, you didn’t bother at all. This strange condition manifest in many, many ways. One time I needed a watch and he decided he would get me one for my birthday. He asked me what type I wanted, and I was quite clear. I wanted a digital watch with numbers for the seconds. Well, I had been very clear, a watch showed up for my birthday. It was a mechanical watch, it had hands, and a second hand, but he had bought seven of them! He distributed them to my brother, sister, cousin, etc.

The physical possession weirdness manifest especially clearly when it came to cars. He got a new Chevy sedan in 1936 to drive to college. It cost $500 and had all the features, every, single one, an electric clock. Well it is a feature. As a kid we had terrible American cars that broke down repeatedly. In 1966 he bought two new cars, a very weird thing for him to do, a 1966 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser in “Sierra Mist” (light gold color) with all the features including air conditioning, which was new, seat belts, also new, and a flasher that you could put on when the car broke down, it was fantastic. He also bought a red MG four door sedan. Probably the only four door MG in the world, but we had one, and it had air conditioning! We then drove around the United States for six weeks visiting each and every tourist spot in the country. My mom decided it was not optimal to go, so my dad took three kids, for six weeks, in the summer, on a drive around the U.S. When we got to Las Vegas, he decided we didn’t quite have enough people in the car, so he called home, and invited my sister’s friend Galyn Johnson to come along. We stayed in hotels every night, ate in restaurants three meals a day. We got extremely good at ordering in restaurants in a very efficient manner. Everyone needed essentially the same thing, it ran like clock work. At the end of the day we would check out hotels. He would walk into the office to check on price, a kid was assigned to check the pool for temperature, a slide, a diving board, etc. The motels had a multi-parameter rating based on pool temperature, accoutrements, and hotel price. We twice stayed in a hotel in Las Vegas on the strip that had windows in the wall of the pool that allowed you to view the Las Vegas Strip! The night Galyn showed up we went to a Casino for dinner. My dad was giving a lecture on the problems with gambling. We were in a long line for the buffet next to a bunch of slot machines which were dinging, and dinging. I was six, my brother Doug 10, Betsy and Gaylyn 12. “You see, these people are not happy, they are just loosing their money.” Suddenly a woman won $50,000 from a slot about a foot from us. The machine did not have enough coins to pay off the JACKPOT! So a casino worker brought over a huge wheel barrow of coins to dump on the floor. My father’s response at this point in the lecture “Don’t mention this to your mother.”

We had a wonderful time on the trip. We skin dived in the Florida Keys. We went to Key West, we did Washington DC, we drove the long way across Texas in the middle of summer. We did the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Four Corners, Dinosaur Parks, we did each and every tourist spot in the continental United States in one summer, in one brand new American car. At one point one of us spilled lemonaide on a seat belt of this new American Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser. It stiffened the seat belt strap, remember this is 1966. That seat belt, was still stiff, and hard to adjust, when you put it on 450,000 miles later when I drove the car in 1996, as an attending anesthesiologists in San Francisco. My dad had begun his weird, American station wagon collection. The next vista cruiser was a baby blue 1967.

There were some minor changes but the car generosity started early. At one point he lent the 1967 Vista Cruiser to Art Rosenfeld, Ph.D. another physicist at Berkeley and now the California Energy Commissioner, in trade for an iridescent green Fiat Spider. It had a stick shift for us to learn how to drive a stick in the Berkeley hills. Art Rosenfeld needed a Vista Cruiser, so we just traded for a couple of years. We drove the Fiat for a couple of years, but the baby blue 1967 Vista Cruiser returned. It was joined by two 1969 vista cruisers that he bought used in 1977 when they hit $1000 a piece. So, we had a set of four.

In 1974, the Arab Oil Embargo hit. Waiting in line for gas for hours on your ration day was not so much fun. My dad purchased two 1974 Chevy Vega Station wagons. They got an amazing 20 miles to the gallon. You remember the model. They had automatically adjustable seat belts that constricted until you were cut in half. They wouldn’t start if the seat belt wasn’t buckled just like an amusement ride roller coaster. They had the sloped front grill to allow for the five mile an hour bumper. They had an aluminum engine block to reduce weight. They were a really cool idea. One in orange and one in yellow, they just weren’t very reliable. My brother took one, welded a 50 gallon steel gasoline tank together that was just the size of the roof rack, bolted it on the roof, plumbed it, and then drove off to college in San Diego. There is nothing like the safety of a Chevy Vega station wagon with a 50 gallon gasoline tank on the roof in the hands of a teenager. But Doug is an extremely responsible guy, and it did allow one to drive the 10 hours from Orinda to San Diego at 55 miles an hour without stopping for fuel or a toilet break.

So here we are in the mid 1970’s with six American station wagons. 1966, 1967, two 1969 Oldsmobile Vista Cruisers, and two Chevy Vega wagons. A terrible thing happened, according to my dad, they stopped making the Vista Cruiser. The windows in the roof reminiscent of the observation car in a railway train were gone. Cruising in the car with all the memories of train ride was no longer selling American station wagons. It was passing era. The sun roof came in and my dad started buying used white $1000 Buick wagons with a sun roof. They came in packs. When I lived in Baltimore, we had two, provided by my dad. They roamed the country getting 15 miles a gallon. He would lend one to my sister, then another, then another. At one point the 1966 Vista Cruiser, your mother’s car, as he would say, was lent to Betsy. Now this is a sacred vehicle. It had gone 450,000 miles. It was smooth, very smooth, except of course for the seat belt that was still stiff from the lemonade one of us spilled in 1966. Shifting the automatic transmission didn’t require even pulling the lever fore or aft, the stops were all worn down you could just change gears. He lent it to Betsy. Soon after a broken fuel line led to a fire and it was destroyed. How could this have happened? It was in “perfect” shape.

My dad then shifted into Chevy Suburbans. In 1977, when we bought the set of used $1000, 1969 Vista cruisers, he had looked at a used $4000 Chevy Suburban. We had always wanted the four wheel drive for the snow, but it was way, way too expensive. But in 1992 he bought a white, very used, Chevy Suburban named Moby Doc for me to use. It was great, except for a few “features”. I drove it around the block and you could turn the steering wheel 360 degrees without affecting the wheels in any way. “Oh, that is the four wheel drive.” He said.

“No, dad, I have driven cars before, when you turn the steering wheel, the front wheels are supposed to turn.” Well, it went off to Holland’s garage for a bit of maintenance, as many of the cars had before it, and was back. It was bouncy enough that I managed to herniate two disks in my neck commuting to work in San Francisco. But it was “safe” as my dad would say. To a particle physicist, mass is the only important feature of automobile safety. The more massive vehicle wins in the collision. This theory had been tested many times with the station wagons.

In the mid 1970’s at Donner Lake, a Ford Station wagon coming down the access road to the lake, in mid winter had crossed the center line, in the snow, and hit the left front corner of the 1966 Vista Cruiser. The steel at that point had aged a bit but it cut the Ford in two. The Ford went to the Reno junk yard, the Vista Cuiser had some new paint a couple of thousand miles later. In the late 1980’s, before the 1989 San Francisco Earthquake destroyed the freeway, my dad was exiting at Fell Street, and a pedestrian ran across in front of the 1966 Vista Cruiser. My dad with lightening fast reflexes of a 70 year old, hit the breaks, and the old girl rapidly decelerated, the way American cars with 450,000 miles on them do, she leaned forward on her suspension, lifted her back end, and stopped. A red Ferrari, with assumingly equal responses, slid right up under the back end of the Vista Cruiser in a most uncompromising, but in San Francisco acceptable, position. The tail hitch of the Vista Cruiser punctured the wind shield of the Ferrari. Well, the Ferrari was junk. There is nothing like an American station wagon sitting on your front hood to do that. The Vista Cruiser got a bit of red paint on one of the bolts on the trailer hitch. Mass beats technology in particle collisions.

The wagons kept coming. There was one always kept at Holland garage in Berkeley on Salono avenue. With the reliability of used, $1000, American automobiles you can save a lot of time by just leaving a car at the shop to trade off, ready when the next one breaks down. At one point, when I lived in Baltimore, I had the car break down three times in a row, on the way home from the repair shop. My dad, was spending $18,000 a year on car repair for seven American Station wagons. When asked about this “concept”, and the joys of this level of reliability, he would quote the mass argument. The concepts of how good the old steel was, how thick, but mostly, how important mass was. “Steel is cheap.” Yes, but steel that was reliable would be better. Alfia and I shared in the car pool. Each of use had a key case with seven sets of keys in a row. I would drive a car to work, park it in the lot. It might or might not be there at the end of the day. But there was always a white, American, General Motors, station wagon sitting in its place with my sun glasses and parking sticker. Now one must remember, I was an attending cardiac anesthesiologist with a wife, two kids, and a house in Marin county and I still didn’t own a car. When I went to buy my house, the mortgage broker was reviewing my debts and obligations. This was in the olden days when one put down 20% cash, got a 30-year fixed rate mortgage, and had to prove one had income, but I digress. “You don’t own a car?” “Nope, see I have one issued to me by my father. There are seven white station wagons in the car pool.” I say as I dangle the key case and the seven sets of keys in front of the broker. “Ah”.

Now I don’t want you to think that my father was a communist. Yes, he did live in the People’s Republic of Bezerkley for more than 60 years. Yes, he did have a communal car pool that he issued to you if you followed the family guidelines. But, while it may seem a bit “Communist”, it was. Well, just my father’s weirdness. To show you the all pervasive nature of parental teaching, in 2008, I went skiing with my brother Doug at Squaw Valley. For those who don’t know Tahoe ski resorts, Squaw Valley is the site of the 1960 winter Olympics. It has an enormous parking lot that holds, I don’t know, but at least 10,000 cars. I drove up to Tahoe in a white, Chevy Suburban, with my kids. We got ready to go skiing and then walked through the parking lot to the lift. I walked along and there was a white, four wheel drive, with every feature available, Toyota, my brother has always rebelled, with license plate Corazon. My father’s influences were so strong that I could pick out my brother’s new car, which I had never seen, out of 10,000 cars covered with ice and snow. When my brother purchased a car for his son on his graduation from the Naval Academy, it was a white station wagon. But I digress.

So, in the early 1990’s the white wagon commune was spreading. My dad was very worried that my brother didn’t have enough white wagons. He confiscated one we were driving and tried to give it to Doug. One must note, that at this point Doug was a cardiac surgeon, married to a neurointerventional radiologist, with two kids, living in Seattle; he still needed a white wagon, there was snow in Seattle. Doug bought his own. At one point I decided that I had to rebel. I really needed to do something to piss off my father. I decided that what would do it was to buy the most offensive car I could think of to an aging, particle physicist, who believed in mass when it came to collisions. I would buy a Miata! I thought about this plan. I called Doug to discuss my plan. Unfortunately, Doug had bought a Miata a week earlier for his wife Sharon. My plans were ruined. The only other car that would have been more offensive to my father’s sensibilities would have been some foreign sports car.

In the 1970’s there was a comic strip in California that my father loved called Gordo. It was about a Mexican Taxi Driver named Gordo. Ultimately Gordo did well enough that he purchased a maserati, which was notoriously unreliable and was always referred to in the strip as a miserari. My brother, the one who ruined my plans to rebel against the white wagon car pool, bought a maserati. Reliability of the car pool cars was always a problem. One night my dad in the mid 1990’s my dad was driving across San Francisco late at night and the car he was driving broke down. He pulled into a gas station to call AAA. Triple AAA had a special deal with my dad where he paid extra money and got a bulk discount on car towing. Well, while he was waiting once again to be towed, Willie Brown the mayor of San Francisco pulled into the gas station. They started talking and Willie said something to the effect of, you know for an old guy with a crummy car, you need a cell phone. That is at least the summary of the conversation my dad gave to his conversation with the famously dapper, former speaker of the California State Assembly and Mayor of San Francisco, that he should solve his car problems by getting a cell phone. He got one.

Well, something had to be done. The problem is simply that when one is issued a free car, no matter how bad it is, it is free. And free, well, free is really… free. Everything is more expensive than free. In the mid 1990’s, Alfia’s dad Alfred came to live with us after his stroke. We had two kids at this point and a house in Marin County. I was a cardiac anesthesiologist but didn’t own a car. The car I was driving, a free, white Buick station wagon with a sun roof, was really special. It had some features that other cars don’t have. Two of the brakes didn’t work. One could change lanes on the freeway simply by applying the brakes. You could only change lanes to the left, but it was still a feature. I asked my dad about this. “Oh, well, every time I take a car into Holland’s they do a complete check, and they check the brakes. It is fine.” Alfia was driving one from the car pool as well. She had it break down on the freeway in San Rafael with two kids in car seats. It was a special moment for a woman who learned to drive at 26, under the tutelage of her boy friend, and soon to be husband. Something had to be done. The problem was simple. The only acceptable car to Roger Wayne Wallace was a white Chevy Suburban with all the features. Art went to the dealer and the 1996 versions only had a driver’s side air bag. I offered to buy one, but there is something about a wife saying. “Don’t you love me enough to get a car with an airbag on my side as well?” That makes a husband wait. So, 1997 model cars came around. They had two airbags, they had white, Chevy suburbans, with every feature. We bought one and brought it home. My dad came over regularly to visit, baby sit the kids, but mostly go out to dinner to talk, and drink iced tea with too much lemon. The white suburban was sitting in front of the house. “Oh, whose is that?” “Ours” “Why did you get that?” I was 37 years old and owned my first car! My dad thought it absurd.

He loved the car though. He drove it around. It was so unique actually having brakes that worked, that he rode them so much he lit them on fire the first time he drove it. He decided it had to be kept in the garage. The problem was it was so large it didn’t fit. We spent a day moving the shelves in the garage so the Surburban had 1 inch clearance all around in the garage. Nothing else fit in it including having to open the garage door to get to the washing machine so it was only in the garage one time for one day but it is a beautiful car. Alfia drove the burban and I kept driving white communal General Motors cars. A year later, I was going on a business trip to Los Angeles. I was on my way to the airport when I stopped at the VA to pick up some electronics we were building. I opened the car door to put in the electronics and the window fell out in my hands. Well, no problem, I’ve got duct tape, I can fix that. A month or so later I was driving home from the hospital passing through San Rafael and the brakes just wouldn’t slow the car down. I pulled off at a gas station near our house to get some non Holland’s service. The oil light would come on every time I slowed to stop. There were a number of issues. I had asked my dad to have Holland’s look at the oil light issue many times. It was quite reliable indicator. Every time the RPM went below 1000, the oil light came on. I was a cardiac anesthesiologist, I know how to read an alarm. I know what alarms are for. When I spoke to the mechanic he said. “Your engine is shot. Your rings are shot. You need a new engine.” “Could I just get thicker oil?” “Nope.” “How about a bigger oil pump?” “Nope.” “Dr Wallace, you need a new car.”

I drove home slightly dejected but Alfia was quite clear. You are going to buy a new car. Well, what would be acceptable to Roger Wallace? Oh, the only car would be a white Chevy suburban. The problem is I commute to San Francisco every day. I drove up to the Chevy dealer with very clear instructions, buy a car. I purchased a beautiful, white, 1997 Chevy Tahoe with every feature. My father was going to be so proud. It was identical to the 1997 white Chevy Surburban with two air bags, and every single feature just 20 inches shorter to allow one to park in San Francisco. It would be a new member of the white wagon commune. Parking huge cars in small spaces, in the Wallace family, is a sign of man hood. The ability to back a trailer up is a sign that one is a man. My brother Doug many times drove to family functions in large farm vehicles or trucks. One time he parked a semi near our house on the one Ferrari width wide streets, just because. He parked a dump truck on Belvedere island when he came to visit my Aunt Sandy at Christmas. For those of you who don’t know, Belvedere island in San Francisco bay has roads narrow and curvy enough that Ferrari’s barely fit, dump trucks are hard to park. So the argument that a Wallace needs a car that is twenty inches shorter to park in San Francisco during a daily commute, doesn’t hold much water with Wallace clan, but I was a wuss.

My dad came over that night. The brand new, white, Chevy Tahoe, with every feature was sitting in the drive way. “What’s that?” “That’s my new car.” “Why did you get the small one.” After much hand wringing my dad came to me very, very concerned. He had decided that because this car was so light, and dangerous, that he would buy me a RooBar to fit to the front of it. Roobars are the steel gratings the Australians bolt on the front of cars like a cow catcher to deflect wayward kangaroos. It took months to convince my father that there were very few kangaroos that I could hit with my Chevy Tahoe on the commute to San Francisco. In 2007, after 160,000 miles the 1997 Chevy Tahoe, which is a wonderful car, started having a few issues. It was joined by a 2007, white Chevy Tahoe, with all the features. A day after purchase we drove the 2007 Tahoe to Canada to visit my dad in Victoria. 2000 miles of driving in a week with four people, it was fantastically comfortable, he was right. In the summer of 2010, my dad was driving up from San Diego to Victoria passing through San Rafael. We lent him the 1997 white Chevy Suburban to drive to Victoria, it broke down an hour into the trip, but despite that issue, he had a wonderful trip, it was a “great” car, and the white wagon commune continued.