The Steering Wheel

THE STEERING WHEEL

It was 1946, only a year after the World War and the supply of metal hadn't yet caught up with post-war demand. So, by necessity, Dad made most of my toys from wood scraps I'd pick up around the neighborhood.

I had just turned six when he decided to build me a miniature wooden car mounted on roller skates, something we Alabama folks used to call a skate-a-mo.

I was right there over his shoulder every night, watching him cut the pieces that were to become my means of transportation. After a week of work, he had it looking like the real thing. But it lacked a steering mechanism.

One evening after work he came home with a surprise. He was holding something behind his back. “What is it, Dad? Show me.” With a big grin, he held it out to me, “Here Pal, this is for your skate-a-mo.”

My eyes bugged out in wonder. It was the steering wheel from an old pre-war Packard. Champaign in color, it had a turning knob of ersatz pearl and glitzy pieces of chrome crisscrossed the inside circumference. I think the crisscrossing stuff was used for blowing the horn.

For a six-year old, it was the most elegant thing imaginable. While he and my mom were out of sight in the kitchen, I caressed it, smelled it, even licked it. In retrospect, It was as close to romantic passion as one could get with an inanimate object.

With sensory explorations out of the way, I simply slid my head through the crisscross strips and let it dangle around my neck like a necklace.

I wore it around for a while until I figured that it was actually a silly thing to do. So I tried to pull it off. But either my head had swollen or the wheel had shrunk and I couldn't extricate myself. My treasure had become my curse.

By the time I sought help, my ears were cherry red and swollen from all the tugging and yanking. I walked into the kitchen and presented myself to my parents with some brilliant remark like, "Look at this.” They too tried to get the thing off but it wouldn’t budge.

My mother became hysterical and, as a last resort, greased my entire head with lard...ears, face and all. Still no luck. By this time, I was looking like a red duck pulled from an oil spill.

On the other hand, Dad’s mood seemed to alternate between uncontrollable hilarity and undisguised disgust. Grunting and breathing hard from all the pulling, he would laugh, “Ha, ha, ha.” Then, a moment later, mutter menacingly, “I simply cannot believe this! …How in the name of God! ... Tarnation, boy, whatever possessed you to do something dumb like this?"

The affair ended with me lying over an open-tub Bendix washing machine with Dad hack-sawing through my beautiful steering wheel and my mother screaming, "Jack, watch his neck, watch his neck."