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Midgets and me
Now that the new year is in full swing I've been thinking of things that I want to do. I've gone through the yearly weight loss pledge and how this year I'm going to exercise more. I've resolved to pay off debts, get organized and a bunch of others. This morning I went out to my pole barn and saw a reminder from the past that I've been ignoring.
I was walking home from high school one day when a sports car pulled up and offered me a ride. I got into that car and fell in love. I'd been in my dad's Chevy and my grandfather's Oldsmobile but never in a car like that. The woman in the car was my neighbor who had just turned eighteen. I was in heaven cruising down the highway in a sporty convertible with an older woman. I knew life couldn't get any better. Someday I had to have a car like that.
Fast-forward six years and I'm twenty-one. I had just broken up with my girlfriend and it was time for a change. I found a mustard yellow MG Midget with chrome bumpers and when I jumped in it fit like a glove. The car was everything I expected and drove like it was built for me. I loved that car and washed and waxed it every weekend.
My first MG
I'd been driving the car for less than a year when I entered a chess tournament in Columbus, Ohio. I drove down there with a master chessplayer friend and at the end of the tournament tragedy struck. While driving down a one-way street a stop sign was missing and we entered a busy intersection. A large car hit us from the side and the impact tore off the front of the car directly in front of our feet. We spun around and when we finally stopped we couldn't believe we were alive. We didn't have a scratch on us, and this was before airbags! It was a long bus ride home but I knew I had to have another MG Midget.
Not long after I went full time at ETDS and had some money so I decided to get a brand new 1979 MG Midget, the last year they were to be made. I went to Cleveland to buy the car and it took a week to get, but the car was mine. I went to pick it up and it was filthy. They figured that being young they could treat me that way. I was lucky because my older sister Debbie was with me. She told me to leave and they could keep the car. I did as she told me to and the guy ran out after me saying he'd make the car shine. My sister and I went out for coffee and when we came back the russet brown midget shone. I got into the car and the needle was way below 'E'. I asked him about it and he said that there was a gas station at the end of the street. Back then gas was $.50 a gallon and the MG had only a 7.2 gallon tank. I was seriously pissed so we had to walk out again and when we returned it had a full tank of gas.
Driving this car was even better than the first one. I paid big money to put a serious stereo tape deck in it (with FM!) and few things were better than driving at night with the top down listening to Roxy Music and watching the stars.
1979 MG Midget with my brother Tom and his friend (photo taken in 1979)
After a couple of years I started having serious electrical problems. Everyone I spoke to would roll their eyes and say, "Lucas". I've since learned that Lucas Electronics are the main reason that MGs were known as Mostly Garaged. I couldn't afford to keep a car that wasn't running so I sold it to my cousin.
Twenty-some years later we were on strike at ETDS and my cousin called me out of the blue. He wanted to make sure I was okay and I assured him I was. Over a cup of coffee I asked about the old MG and he said he still had it in his garage covered by a tarp. We rushed to his house, he pulled off the tarp and memories flooded back to me. He gave me the car back at no cost. I couldn't believe it.
The next weekend we decided he would tow it to my house. I jumped in and got stuck. When I bought the car I was 175 pounds, now I was an eighth of a ton. It felt like the car had shrunk and I accused him of leaving the car out in the rain. While cleaning it out I found a roll of film in the trunk that had been taken when I owned it and had it developed. The pictures were of my little brother sledding when he was about eight, he's thirty now.
It's ironic now to see that I bought a car that is brown when I drive a brown truck now. It's going to take a long time to get the MG Midget running, not because it's in bad shape but because I know nothing about cars. I'll have to do some serious dieting as I learn how to restore it.
Last year I went to a British car show and as I leaned on a railing a very attractive upper class woman stood next to me and smiled. We looked down at all of the British cars and she purred, "I love Jaguars." I looked at her and said, "I love Midgets." She gave me a look of absolute disgust and said, "You sick bastard!" and walked away. Oh well.
