Fingernails--A Woman's Complete Tool Kit

I keep my fingernails long. Occasionally, my husband complains about their length, especially when I accidentally spear him with a nail. My grandsons—when they were small—found my nails infinitely fascinating, running their fingertips over the tips of my nails, as if they were trying to find the meaning of life in those transparent plates at the ends of my fingers. My husband suggests upon occasion—usually those occasions when I accidentally spear him—that I should trim them. While I do trim them when they get so long that they become a nuisance to me, I never cut them completely down, as my husband would like.

I keep my fingernails long because when I was growing up, my mother bit her fingernails to the quick. I, too, and my younger sister, bit ours. My maternal grandmother, on the other hand, had long, beautiful, shapely nails. I admired and envied them and aspired to grow fingernails like hers.

When I left for college, I stopped biting my nails. Two years later, when my younger sister left home, she stopped biting her nails, and my mother stopped biting hers, even though she still had her youngest daughter—a four-year-old “surprise”--at home.

All of my adult life, I have found this timing curious. Why did my younger sister and I cause our mother so much angst that she bit her nails until we left home? We were not problem children. And why did we react by biting ours? Perhaps once the great weight of raising her older daughters passed, she relaxed, and my sister and I followed her lead, handsome hands.

I keep my fingernails long. All of my adult life, I have been proud of my long, strong, triumphant nails.

Throughout my adult life, I have found that these long, strong triumphant nails serve other purposes, in addition the metaphorical one--they provide a complete tool kit. They serve as a flat-head screwdriver when drawer pull screws or the screw on the side of the French press come loose. They serve as toothpicks, although I still prefer the wooden kind when dining in public—depending on the restaurant! They reinforce folds on paper, especially if I am trying to make a neat tear when I cannot find scissors. They serve as can openers when I am trying to pry the lid off of preserve jars and am too lazy to open the utensil drawer. The list goes on, but they do also serve well when I decide to poke my husband.

 

Memoir of a VW Van

One late spring day in 1976, my father called to ask if he could drop by my apartment for a visit. As it turned out, his sad intent was to allow me to say goodbye to a cherished family member—a red 1972 Volkswagen van, dubbed “The Thing.” Daddy had originally purchased The Thing new as a work car, but even so, the frequent repairs which the vehicle demanded forced Daddy to decide to trade it in for a more reliable vehicle.

My love for The Thing burned as red hot as the vehicle’s exterior color. Actually, I learned to drive in the family car, a 1961 Chevrolet station wagon with an automatic transmission. However, once I got the basics of driving down, I shifted to driving The four-speed Thing. I reveled in driving the vehicle, not having the vehicle drive me.

On 27 December 1971, my parents and my two younger siblings piled into The Thing and headed to the Louisiana DMV. On this grand occasion of my fifteenth birthday, the family headed out bright and early for me to apply for my driver’s license. In spite of the examiner’s initial skepticism, I passed my driver’s test in that van and proudly drove the family home.

The van was fun to drive, although it was not the safest vehicle. Their light weight and boxy construction rendered VW vans prone to roll-overs, but I never rolled The Thing, nor tried to! With the engine located in the back, the driver’s seat perched at the very front of the vehicle, affording a precipitous view of the road. I would freak out my friends by turning 360 degrees in intersections, an impossible feat in a sedan but easily doable in that machine of oppositions.

My brother’s favorite memory of The Thing occurred on a family trip. We were stopped on a hill at a red light. Once the light turned green, I struggled to orchestrate the clutch and gas only to keep stalling out the engine. Daddy kept yanking up on the emergency brake. I don’t remember how many tries it took for me to get the van rolling forward, but my brother still giggles at that story.

My favorite Thing story involves driving a group of kids from my church across Baton Rouge to a memorial service at a cemetery on the outskirts of town. Most of the drive was down Airline Highway, a major, four-lane road. On the way home, I got into an impromptu, informal drag race with an unknown driver in a Camaro. Even as an inexperienced driver, I had a knack for reading the traffic, looking ahead and changing lanes instead of sticking in one lane until I reached my destination. This driving strategy, performed by a teen-aged girl driving a VW van full of teenagers, angered the guy driving the muscle car when he realized what had just passed him. Ultimately, my skillful playing of traffic got us to our intersection to turn off of Airline Highway ahead of the guy in the Camaro. He followed us aggressively through the neighborhood, but when he saw us pull into the church parking lot, he cut a donut and sped away.

I had many other driving adventures in that van. In 1972, Governor-elect Edwin Edwards declared a school holiday for his inauguration. My best friend Charlene and I loaded our bicycles into The Thing and headed across the Mississippi River to Port Allen for an adventure. My mother gave birth on 17 June 1972 to my baby sister. As the family errand girl, I had more freedom to gad about than I would have had under different circumstances. While I frequently drove around friends and groups from church, I never had a wreck or got a ticket.

My father appreciated my bond with The Thing and thoughtfully allowed me to take that last drive and say my farewells. My own life had changed drastically since Daddy bought that vehicle. In January, 1976, I gave birth to my daughter, becoming a young mother much too soon. At that point in my life, I was not only saying goodbye to fond memories of youthful driving experiences, but saying goodbye to my carefree youth, as well.