Be Good to Yourself

When peeper frogs sing (March 12), crocuses bloom (March 13), and I plant turnips and arugula (March 17) is my favorite time of year, and giddy with cheerfulness I chose as my mission to do something nice for myself, but then came the questions: Get a Subway sandwich? Go to the gym? Manicure hands so winter-dry that the knuckles bleed? And driving up "the strip" I saw an Auto Zone. Inspired, I stopped and bought what I truly needed for a happy spring: New windshield wipers. Hearing the clerk explain all the new exciting windshield wiper technology was by itself worth the price--but I also got the wipers and installation, after which we tried 'em out. My old wipers streaked the windshield like grease on a glass pan. The new wipers opened a whole world of clarity--sweet! Miraculous! What better way to celebrate spring than to see it clearly? $34 is cheap for such a long-lasting thrill.

Then I bought my sandwich, telling the sandwich artist that the sandwich was beautifully made and leaving a good tip, and went to the gym, and had a manicure and left a good tip, and have never been so happy about being good to myself. So you be good to yourself. The old-time pagans feasted at this time of year. Feast and celebrate any way you can.

You Drive What?

I tried to think of things to say about this delivery car topped with a giant chicken parked at the gas station/restaurant in Doolittle, MO, along I-44. But at last I must admit: I'm speechless.

1953 Lincoln Continental

Fully restored, inside and out: Lincoln's 50th-anniversary ultra-deluxe model with power steering, brakes and windows. Interfering with your view of this car are a 1957-model female and 1950-model male with lots of miles on them. He wants 60 grand for the car. It's worth it.

Love in the Body Shops

His bald head showed scars, and I immediately knew how he got them. He owns the auto-body shop. The scars on his tanned scalp were pink and white, all shapes, some more vivid than others, so he'd collected them over time. He wore a short-sleeved, very clean, very creased, tucked-in blue shirt, with an oval over his heart with his name, embroidered in brown: Don.

Underneath cars most of his life, Don had cut his brow open on them at least six or seven times, badly enough to leave permanent scars. Another body-shop owner could have probably read them like a book. I saw in them his love of cars and loved him for loving anything that much, even when it hurt him.

"Adds up fast," he said, apologetically, handing me the estimate: $606. "That's 'cause in that one place it's scratched down to the metal. We take off the door handle so you won't have any tape marks on 'er when it's repainted. You'll have to leave her here two-three days, so the paint can dry. . . "

I would have to look for a lower estimate, and drove to another body shop with an office not 8 feet by 12 feet, lots of it taken up by four-drawer steel file cabinets. A neat rack of car keys hung from the door. The estimator, a stringbean with glasses, name Jim -- no other name was possible -- had color pictures of his 20ish daughter on his Steelcase desk, and all sorts of little certificates and state licenses and awards and thank-you plaques exactly lined up on the wall. I loved him for loving his daughter and for lining everything up just so. He typed up his estimate for me: $470.