I have a dark side.

Artistic, literary, fairly-reserved Dodie has “the need - the need for speed.”

I come from a car-loving family. My mom and dad took me to car shows and collector car auctions practically from infancy. My dad worked for General Motors for 40 years. Instead of looking for license plates from different states on road trips, we’d identify makes, models, and years of cars.

After spending a college summer working second shift at the same GM factory where my father worked, I paid cash to Hertz for my first car - a used bright yellow Ford Pinto with red and black racing stripes. Can you imagine anyone renting a Pinto?!

I grew up in the Racing Capital of the World. I’ve attended the Indianapolis 500 more times than I can remember. I’ve seen my share of Brickyard 400s. Phillip started taking me to the NHRA US Nationals back when we were dating and we haven’t missed very many years since. The sound. The power. The feeling of the engines rumbling in your head and chest. The smell of the racing fuel. I have to admit that I love it all.

Being a spectator is one thing. Being the driver is something completely different. I first experienced the exhilaration of pure speed several years ago when we were at Gateway International Speedway in St. Louis for an Impala SS event. We were showing and competing two different cars and my husband had an event conflict. Although our 1995 Impala SS was in line for drag racing, he couldn’t get back over to the drag strip to run it. Our friends coached me on how to watch the tree (the starting lights for drag racing) and what to do. They slapped a helmet on me and, before I had the chance to even be nervous, I found myself lined up at the starting line watching those lights go from yellow to green. I did what our friends had told me to do – “floor it, hang on, and go straight” and, although I didn’t win, I had more fun than I had ever had in my life. So much fun that I drove the car right back around and put it back in line for another pass.

I have done this many times since, at Impala events and Camaro events. I’m not a big fan of rollercoasters (I hate the drops) but the adrenaline rush of drag racing cannot be beat.  I'm not very good at it because I have terrible reaction time, but it's still thrilling!

In my previous daily driver, an LT1-powered 1994 Cadillac Fleetwood
Brougham, on the drag strip at Indianapolis Raceway Park

On the track at the Putnam Park Road Course

All of our cars are rear-wheel drive V8s. There are two of us and four cars. We each have a daily driver and a “fun car.” My current personal daily driver is a 2009 Pontiac G8 GT, sadly, the last of the Pontiacs. It came from the factory with 360 horsepower and 385 lb-ft of torque. Think winter driving might be questionable? Not at all. Slap some winter wheels and snow tires on it and it goes like a sled.

My fun car is a 2002 Camaro SS 35th Anniversary Brickyard 400 track car from the August 2001 Brickyard 400 race. It was  #24 of 44 cars that year and my favorite driver, a “local boy” who we all watched come up through the ranks of Midget car racing, Jeff Gordon (#24), won the race.  He graciously agreed to sign the dash during a practice session for the 2002 race the following year.

Yep. That's me leading several other Camaros
across the famous "Yard of Bricks" at the
Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Because we have participated in some Chevrolet/Indianapolis Motor Speedway photo shoots, I've been lucky enough to drive some of the "real" Indianapolis 500 pace cars and my own Brickyard 400 track car around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway several times.

I started keeping track and I have actually made 98 laps around the famed oval!  Not many folks can say that and I'm proud of it!

To quote Shrek, "Onions have layers. Ogres have layers." Dodie has layers.

 

Christmas Cards (Yes. I know that it is February.)

My husband, Phillip, and I don’t send “normal” Christmas cards.

It is actually all his fault. Before we were married, he was known for sending unique photo cards to his friends and family at Christmas time. The most shocking of these included him dressed in a tuxedo holding some mistletoe. Sounds innocent to you? Then you obviously don’t know where he was holding that mistletoe.



Dracula's Christmas

Me? I had always sent beautiful, traditional Christmas cards. Usually selected for their touching message and high glitter to cardstock ratio. Always Hallmark. Always in gold foil-lined envelopes.


Then I met this funny, goofy guy and we started dating. We were both pretty set in our ways since we were 30 years old, neither of us had ever been married, and we had both pretty much come to the conclusion that was the way it was going to remain. (That’s a story for another blog.) Somewhere along the way, I saw the infamous “mistletoe” card referenced above and, for some reason, I didn’t run screaming the other way. (Ah. The misguided bliss of new love.) That Christmas, he did an elaborate Dracula’s Christmas themed card and, again, I didn’t run. I love Halloween too, so I thought it was kind of cool.

Merry Christmas from the
Ghosts of Christmas Past

By the next Christmas, we were newlyweds. He explained to me that his family expected an off-the-wall photo Christmas card. I explained to him that my family expected a sane, glittery Hallmark card in a foil-lined envelope. I compromised and gave in – just this once for our very first card together since we had a nice, traditional (i.e., non-controversial) idea and a photographer who lived across the alley who could pull it off.

I ended up having to explain it to my parents. I had to explain it to my grandparents. My aunts and uncles were stunned. My cousins were confused. They didn’t come out and say so, but I know that they all considered it to be quite odd and wondered what had happened to the glitter and gold foil.

The next year rolled around and I soon learned that I was “stuck.” There were expectations to be met. Family members on both sides were asking questions about what kind of “crazy card” was coming this year? I argued that my family just “didn’t get it.” He argued that they needed to “figure it out.” I had to admit that it actually was kind of fun, so I gave in.

So, here we are, eighteen Christmas cards later. There isn’t any question any more. It’s happening. We can’t stop. There are expectations. We have a routine. We’ve learned that we have to have a firm idea by Halloween in order to make it work. Sometimes it is Phillip’s idea. Sometimes it’s mine. When it is his idea, I usually have to talk him down to something do-able and less offensive. (I can’t begin to tell you all of the different ways he’s tried to kill or injure Santa Claus, as an example.) The picture has to be shot by mid-November for the cards to be ordered and ready to go in early December. Even though no one on the receiving end may even notice, I always create return address labels that hint at the theme of the card inside the envelope. We’ve gone through a couple of very patient photographers. Our current one is a great guy who’s also a car club friend.

When all is said and done, some years are better than others, but they are always well-received.

 Here are some more of my particular favorites from the past nearly 20 years:



Have yourself a merry LITTLE Christmas!
May all of your BIG wishes come true!



Bad Claus, bad Claus, whatcha gonna do?

Slow down and enjoy the holidays!







 



Rebels without a Claus

Holiday greetings from scenic Indiana!



"Triple dog dare ya" to have a Merry Christmas!





He was right. In the end, my family did eventually “figure it out.” (Of course, it doesn’t hurt that they think that Phillip is the best thing since sliced bread.)

We have fun doing it. People have fun receiving them. As long as that’s the case, there’s no doubt that it will all be happening again next year.







"The King's Speech"

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that Colin Firth was a recurring theme in a previous post about romantic comedies. I assure you that this post has nothing to do with that, even though my husband does regularly refer to him as one of my “boyfriends” and I have been a fan of his since - well - let’s just admit it (even though it has to be quite a thorn in his side to still be linked to Mr. Darcy) the 1995 “Pride and Prejudice” miniseries.

“The King’s Speech” is honestly one of the best movies I’ve seen in years and I think that you should see it even if you think you wouldn't like “that kind of movie.”

The film is based upon the true story of King George VI (a man who was never intended for the throne, but had it thrust upon him with the abdication of his brother) and his struggle to overcome a speech impediment that had plagued him throughout his entire life. He became King just as England was about to face World War II, when his country needed a monarch who could speak to them and for them in the face of the German threat and, ironically, in the face of the threat of Hitler himself, whose strength was greatly magnified by his own ability to use oratory to inspire his followers.

But enough about that, because the film is actually instead simply about a wife (Elizabeth, the future Queen Mother) who loves her husband (Bertie, soon to become King George VI) so much that she is willing to go to a very seedy part of London to engage a very unorthodox Australian-born speech therapist (Lionel Logue) after all other formal attempts have failed. The story that follows is of the relationship and bond that develops between her husband and the therapist, in spite of all of the reasons they should not and could not become friends.

Not a stuffy British film at all (as you might expect), at its heart, it is actually no more than a buddy movie. Yes – I said "a buddy movie." While historically-based, biographical, and stylishly filmed as a period drama, with the brilliant acting of Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, and Colin Firth, the film transcends all of that by giving us incredibly relatable characters. The history lesson is also tempered with quite a bit of unexpected humor, mostly stemming from Lionel's banter with Bertie as he tries to get to the source of his stammer - the neglect, the taunting, and the emotional turmoil that he faced as a young man.

The director, Tom Hooper, who also directed another of my favorite historic biographical pieces, the HBO miniseries, “John Adams,” delivers through these amazing actors a compelling, moving, and yet entertaining portrait of a real man facing his demons in what may be the worst possible time for him to have to do so, quietly emerging as a hero.

As the credits roll, we learn that Bertie and Lionel remained friends for the rest of their lives - which is just as any good buddy movie worth its weight should end.

My Aunt Shirley

My father’s parents divorced when he was only two years old. This didn’t happen very often in the 1930s and the divorce decree is simply chilling to read. The judge actually divided the family in half, just as he did their possessions. Because neither parent really had the means during the Great Depression to support both children, my dad was to be taken to live with their father and his older sister Shirley was to live with their mother. My grandmother Olive couldn’t bear the thought of losing her young son, so the three of them went into hiding for almost a year, scraping by as best they could and moving around a lot in the city to try to avoid the inevitable.



When it finally happened, my father was apparently literally ripped from his distraught seven-year-old sister Shirley’s arms – an event that haunted her for the rest of her life.

Their childhoods went very differently. My dad lived with his father and paternal grandparents at first and, eventually, with his father, stepmother, and half-brother and half-sister in what could be described as a typical working class family of the day.  My Aunt Shirley, however, lived with her mother who apparently rebounded from her divorce with a series of poor choices in men and in declining health. My Aunt Shirley essentially spent her young life supporting my grandmother until Olive’s death a couple of months after I was born.

I never heard my Aunt Shirley ever refer to my father without calling him “my baby brother Ralph.” Ever. When they were both in their seventies, he was still her “baby brother Ralph.” Although they were separated at such a very young age and grew up in different households, they had an incredible bond.


So I guess it’s no surprise that that bond carried over to me. When I was a child, she always treated me like an adult. She trusted me. She took me with her on little secret errands. My Christmas present was always something special and unique, chosen with great care and usually something my own parents would have never purchased for me. She called me “Sis” and “Myrtle” and “Gertrude.” She decorated a little shelf for every single holiday and she'd wait until we came to visit so I could help her.

I’m not a thing like my mother, but I ended up as a clone of my Aunt Shirley. I do things every day that I can trace to her.

Alzheimer’s disease actually stole her away several years before her death in 2003, so she's been gone for quite awhile now, but I still miss her terribly.

Happy birthday, Aunt Shirley.

Love, Myrtle



Friendship sure has changed - or has it?

My childhood friends were the neighbor kids from a three or four house radius. Once I started elementary school, my circle broadened to include my best friend, Dawn, who actually lived two blocks away. Things stayed that way throughout high school as I added to my small circle of friends through participating in certain activities like choir and drama. Then I went to college and added a few girls in the residence hall rooms neighboring mine (through whom I met my dearest college friend, Darcy, who became my roommate my sophomore year).

Next there were work friends. Once I started teaching, I became close friends with my fellow English teacher Kathy, who ended up being my matron of honor, and I’ve worked with my best friend, Michele, on and off during my nearly 14 years at my current company.

I think that most of us could relay a similar story about a similar "friendship cycle." Some friends stick with you forever, some do not, but they have always tended to be of the moment. Present. Nearby.

It’s amazing to me how now the online connections that we take for granted have so significantly changed this friendship cycle.

For example, my husband and I have “car club friends.” We have local car club friends, which kind of fit into the category above – of the moment, nearby. But, thanks to the internet, we spent much of the late 1990s and early 2000s connecting with others from all over the country who shared our interest in the 1994-1996 Impala SS and related GM B-Body cars. We have been lucky enough to meet with these people in person, practically on a yearly basis, since 1998. I have Impala SS-related friends in places like Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Missouri, Connecticut, and New York. These are people who, if we were on a road trip and needed a place to stay or had car problems, could actually be called on to help. Real friends. We may not see them all of the time, but we would readily drive halfway across the country to compete with them during the day and sit with them at night in a hotel parking lot talking over burnout fumes and drinks and it would be as if we’d never been apart.

It’s the same with our “Disney friends.” As I mentioned in my last post about traveling to Walt Disney World, we have met several really good people through the online Disney fan community and we consider them to be true friends. Again, these are people from all over the country: Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Texas, Georgia, Delaware, Massachusetts, Virginia, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and more. Even Canada! These are the kind of friends who’ve been added to the Christmas card list. I communicate with some of them almost daily via Facebook, message boards, and even by text. I met my BFF, Kathy, this way – someone with whom I have more in common than would seem possible for a Jersey girl and a girl from the Midwest. We’ve traveled with these folks on Disney cruises, trips to Disney World, and, with some of them, even as far as Hollywood and Disneyland. Although we’ve had some incredibly fun times with these people, we have also been there for one another in the very worst of possible situations.

I guess that the best friendships are still simply based on having something in common with someone. That used to mean locale. Thank goodness that we live in an age when that’s no longer necessarily always the case.