I love Christmas, but not for what I think the usual reasons are. Not that I'd have any idea what the usual reasons could be, I guess. So forget all that.
In 1978, my dad and I had the great idea of attending the U.S. Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. After all, we lived 12 miles from the track; we could just show up and buy a couple tickets and head in the morning of the race and get in.
Well, as we didn't know until we tried: nope. We got a nice long walk in great weather out of the deal, though, so it wasn't a total loss.
Fast-forward one year: my dad is working in some sheet-metal place or other somewhere within 60 miles of Dundee, New York; I'm in eighth-grade in a school I'll be leaving very soon after, mostly wishing I was in our back field (yes, we had a big field on top of a hill and I had a bat and ball and friends who were honest but even more kind) so as to facilitate continuing my imagination's ability to let me think being a New York Yankee was possible...
And somewhere in this, under anyone's radar, was my Uncle Al.
And one day, toward mid-September, sitting in my grandparents' place on Harpending Avenue, he gets up and says something and hands my dad two yellow tickets.
And so, by the grace of my uncle's kind intentions (not a rare instance), Dad and I find ourselves in Watkins Glen at 4:30AM on the day this video was shot. It was, is, and always will be among the top several days of my life.
And I understand why it might seem funny to read that. After all, if you watch this you will not see lots of sunshine to loll in, not that I've ever been much of a sunshine loll-er. This thing just shows part of a 40-year-old auto race. Yet in telling you that one of my favorite Formula 1 drivers EVER won the race, I must tell you that I sometimes forget that detail. Because like always in great moments, the things that seemed like most people would think matter took a back seat to a lot of silliness and fun and details no one else but their includents (I just made that word up) would ever know about. For instance:
* Dad and I walked the entire track in darkness...I don't mean around the edges of the track; I mean we walked ON the track, passed every inch of every straightaway and turn. I remember walking past campers with lights on and people laughing (I assume laughs) and lots of beer, but we hiked in the mist and while I don't recall every turn now (and wouldn't have then, being distracted by many things) I know we made the circuit. Dad and I completed a lap. Never thought about it that way, but it makes me laugh now to do so.
* Dad and I made it to the paddock, which is or was then like the biggest coolest unguarded collection of cars on the planet. We walked in, figuring it might be drier, and were alone except for a few other fans up that early... and all the freaking Formula One cars. Seriously: we just walked in and hung around and no one thought to say we shouldn't. There were a hundred thousand people at that race and any one of those people could have conceivably changed the race's results by...what...swinging a ball-peen hammer for fifteen seconds? They could've. I could've. And we didn't. Because we wouldn't. Something to consider when you wonder if security is more important than remembering common decency and manners. Not taking a political side here; just saying it's something to think about given the chances people (who after all are always people) didn't take then.
* After our paddock time, we went back to the car, which was a red Toyota truck my mom named Truckee. And this, like Al getting the tickets at all, is where fortune shows itself to have shown up before it was noticed, because in the darkness of our arrival Dad parked Truckee right next to the entrance/exit from the Skid Pad, where the drivers sometimes landed in helicopters. Which explains why, among others, Emerson Fittipaldi stood out the window and chatted and Jody Scheckter (crowned 1979 world champion a few hours later) sat on Truckee's hood and talked.
* After some truck time, the race started and Dad and I were trackside watching cars fly by. And I tell you, my friends: it was a scene. People with bedsheet banners saying "Welcome CBS Sports" on one side which they'd flip when they thought they were on camera to reveal such sweet words as "Show us your tits!". About ten thousand little brown stickers with a profile of someone who looked like whichever Carradine (David?) was in "Kung Fu" but emblazoned with the words, "TUCSON'S NEXT MAYOR". People on scaffolds four stories high quickly building mountains of beer cans beneath their lairs. And lots and lots more, and rain and mist and racing.
It was awesome in the truest, most pure and undiluted sense of that word. And it's Christmas, and though it doesn't seem like much of a Christmas story, I share it because I am thankful to have it to remember and have looked forward to and kind of keep. And the video will show rain and the race and will give you clues to what matters about it all but unless you can reach deeper it will end up telling you nothing. Evidence is not the same as facts, and the facts are not the story.
And yeah: Merry Christmas! And thank you Uncle Al, wherever you are right now! Your kindness and love are never forgotten.
No comments:
Post a Comment