Car Talk: The Stories We Hold and Share

I spent a good hour drying the morning dew accumulated from a night parked along the ocean road. Running the chamois over the car’s finish, I began to worry. What am I doing here? What made me think I could start prepping the car just yesterday? Yesterday!?

Chiding myself for unhelpful thoughts, I pulled out the driver’s side floor mat and gave it a good shake, ridding it of leaf particles and gravel dust accumulated in the last 24 hours.  I emptied the glove box and removed the fire extinguisher from the rear seat. Stepping back, I surveyed my work. Not a perfect job but it will have to do. 

My white sneakers were soaked through from the wet lawn, and grass clippings clung to the fabric. Hmm…I looked at the car again: the tires were covered in grass too. They must have mowed the lawn yesterday…of course they mowed the lawn yesterday. I thought the tires looked pretty good with those grass clippings (call it laziness) so I packed up my cleaning supplies and shoved them under my lawn chair. Time to take a stroll and enjoy the show.  

It was not quite 8:30 in the morning and as my feet squished uncomfortably with every step, snippets of conversation reached me, flowing through the air, over hoods and past headlights, through engine compartments, and around steering wheels. 

“When did your father buy it?”

“I don’t own one but…someday. Someday.”

“He’s been working on rebuilding this thing for two years…there are three of us in this marriage.”

“This color was my mother’s favorite…it was special to her.”

I forgot my wet feet as I looked around me at the small groups huddled together, bonding in each narrative and moment shared. And it occurred to me, that this event, billed as the Northeast Region Porsche Club Concours, held on the Great Lawn of The Elms, a magnificent Gilded Age mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, was really a storytelling gathering.  

“I sold one just like this…have regretted it ever since. It was a time in my life when…”

“I am trying to get my daughter to drive the car. She doesn’t know manual yet and is worried about breaking…”

“I bought it when I got my dream promotion.”

The owner of The Elms, a 60,000 SF, three story mansion set on 14 acres, was Edward Julius Berwind, a coal baron with a keen appreciation of the latest technology. Built in 1901 of non-combustible materials, the limestone exterior is a mere façade, covering block infill walls within a structural steel frame. Modeled on an 18th Century French Chateau, The Elms is a marvel of the best of craftsmanship and innovation from its time.   

I am pretty sure that Berwind would have been delighted to see all those cars on his lawn, examples of innovative technology from a later time. With the stone terraces and rear façade of The Elms as backdrop, Porsches ranging in production year from the 1950s to 2024 sat like jewels on display. Hundreds of car enthusiasts walked up and down the freshly mowed aisles, exclaiming their admiration, talking to owners, taking photographs.

The cars were indeed worthy of all the attention. I appreciate the technology – Porsche’s inventions or the innovations it was quick to embrace for its production cars, including the air cooled flat-six engine. And I will admit, I am a sucker for good design. Oh, the melding of that technology with those sculpted lines! I think there is no car on the planet sexier than the 911, particularly the early ones (how could I be a traitor to the Blue Car?).

This Concours event brought out the best of the best, in all their clean and sparkling glory. But as I walked, listening to conversations wafting past, my worries about my lackluster efforts cleaning the Blue Car faded away. My concerns about being judged (quite literally) for dust in my engine compartment and smudges on the windshield were forgotten. Yes, this event was about prepping and cleaning cars to transform them to as close to new as possible, but the cars before me were an entrée into a world beyond showroom condition, technology, tight curves at high speed, and seductive lines—these cars represented links between humanity, connecting person to person, one story, one encounter at a time. These links, these stories, enlarge and enrich my world in ways that matter deeply to me. For as long as I can remember, I have craved personal connections, community, and shared experiences more than teddy bears, fancy clothes, or a big house.

A laugh interrupted my thoughts. A laugh that exuded humanity, empathy, and joy. Lots of joy. I turned around to say hello to the owner of that laugh (and of a splendid car) and a conversation ensued that lasted on and off throughout the event. Some random stories, snippets about our children, favorite museums, the magic of a quiet drive with only our thoughts to keep us company.

My wet shoes and less-than-perfect car forgotten, I couldn’t help smiling. This is why I am here. 

It’s one of the best things about bringing the Blue Car to these storytelling events billed as car shows. Someone will come up to my car, or I will walk past theirs, and it starts so simply, so easily: “Nice color.” “What year?” “What size engine?” And because cars don’t exist without their owners (it’s the old “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, does it make a sound?” conundrum), things move on from there. “Where do you drive it? Are you the first owner? Are you happy with it? Do your kids like it? Your partner? Changing jobs?” It’s amazing how far and quickly you can move from talking about that problem with the passenger side door leak (I still need help with that) to telling someone stories of hope, of work, of family, of living life in the fast lane (literally), of weekend adventures. 

“What are you going to do about that steering wheel?”

It was right after lunch, and it was the fifth time someone had asked me this question. The story of the steering wheel cover is a condensed story of my adult life. A story of my hopes, my kids, my life in the not-so-fast-lane (until recently), and mostly of a love found and lost and then found again in a new way. A story that might take weeks or months for you to know if I met you in other circumstances. But there, on the lawn at The Elms, new acquaintances heard the story in its condensed version and then shared stories of their own. And if I see you at a future event, I will tell you the story of why I am not doing a damn thing about the Blue Car’s ratty steering wheel cover.

But not now, because at this moment on New Year’s Day, three months after that story telling event billed as a car show, I see 2025 spreading before me and I am looking for glimmers of hope and joy--those fleeting micro moments that cause a rush of happiness and calm. And connecting with other people is high on my list of glimmers; I am searching for the things that  bind us in empathy and shared goals as fellow humans on this earth. So I have been thinking about those glimmers in my life and hearing someone’s stories and sharing moments of laughter and understanding are almost as good as a brilliant sunrise at the Grand Canyon.

On that October day at The Elms, the glimmers were sparkling everywhere.  

There was the Porsche owner who shares my favorite museum in Boston and makes the same effort to snag those concert tickets when they go on sale to members, hovering over the “buy” button online to click at exactly 9am on a Wednesday morning. I learned so much more about him laughing about that manic moment to snag good seats than if we had stuck with the usual “Where do you live? What do you do for work?”

And then there was the remarkable story of the Porsche that was purchased, sold, and then re-purchased many years later, the original owner’s business card still in the glove box after all those years. It was a story about relationships-- father, son, cross-border relations with Canada. A story of tradition and continuity, and the marvelous coincidences of life. So much in just ten minutes.

And delightfully, there was the Porsche owner in the spectacular pants that fit her car so very well. Right before awards time, a woman came walking toward me and took a seat in the shade on the cool stone steps of the back terrace. She had on the most splendid pair of psychedelic pants.  “Pucci?”, I guessed.  “Good one, but no, Moschino!”  “Your car is early to mid-seventies, right?” She laughed. “How did you guess?” My sewing machine has been dormant a while, and that encounter fired up the creative spark in me and has me thinking about what to wear to the next car show. What 1970s fashion will complement the Blue Car and me?

Stories everywhere. Just the way I like it.

A few years ago, a friend asked me, knowing I am not a car nerd (there, now I admit it for all to know), what I do at these car shows and what I talk about. I can’t rattle off a list of every Porsche model, engine size, design change year, and production quirk of these cars. But I do love these cars for the pure beauty and fun of them and I love the Blue Car most of all. I love it for its design and how it took the curves on those splendid roads past thoroughbred farms and bourbon distilleries in Kentucky and for what the world feels like when my hands are on that ratty steering wheel cover and I am simply one with the car. And I love it for all its history and the moments I remember in it. Like the first time I drove it, terrified of breaking it or of losing control, sweltering in the Alabama steamy heat of summer.  Or the time my husband and I had some fun while parked in a field under the stars in western Massachusetts (I was young and took that flexibility for granted). And of memories after he died of putting my kids in the back in their toddler seats, which the Blue Car seemed perfectly made to hold, and laughing with them as they said, “Mama, go fast in the Blue Car.” And when I sped up and stayed in low gear for a little drama, the loud rumble behind made them think Mama was traveling at the speed of light. I can still impress them by doing that even though they are grown now (or maybe they are just indulging me).

The stories can go on and on. Mine and everyone else’s. Cars going and coming again, fun fashion moments, shared cultural obsessions…you name it. These are stories we don’t get to hear in the normal course of going through our lives, with strangers, with “others,” all around us. Stories that break down the barriers, the assumptions, the preconceived ideas we arm ourselves with every day, at the grocery line checkout, watching the news, engaging on social media, sitting in that zoom meeting and wishing we were somewhere else.

These stories--the ones we hold and the ones we share--are the stories of our values, our loved ones, our joys, our heartbreaks, our dreams. The cars are the catalyst for connecting; they create a common starting point that engenders empathy, causes us to want to know more about someone, and binds us through something larger than a love for automobiles. Because if one thing is true at the start of 2025 in this crazy world, it is that everyone has a story, many stories.

These are the glimmers I see and hold for the coming year. The car show at The Elms may have offered a master class in connecting, but I don’t need the lawn at The Elms, with gleaming Porsches all around me, to stop and listen and share.  Because after all, not everyone is into cars (shocking) and a love and appreciation for Porsches isn’t the only thing that can start the stories rolling, helping us connect with others. How about that glorious sunrise? Or the fun in watching a child run and play? Or the absurdity of…well, the absurdity of so many things? The entry points for connecting in simple curiosity, with good will and an open mind, are infinite, one person at a time.

I now realize I was unconsciously doing this a few weeks ago. Doing what some friends call “Susaning” instead of using less polite descriptions.  When I came out of a video exhibit at an art museum, I walked by the docent and then because it seemed a lonely job for him at the moment, I turned back to ask him what he thought of the video. After a discussion about the exhibit and art in general, I learned of his recent move to the area with his wife, that he was a piano tuner who had worked for some music greats, and that yes, he still did that. His love of art had led him to the gallery and he enjoyed connecting with the other docents and with the owners of the art foundation. His stories of tuning pianos for some big shows and some very picky musicians were amusing. A date was set for him to visit with his wife for a cup of coffee and to tune my piano. All this because I asked a question. I stopped to listen. 

The stories we hold and the stories we share make us human. Our curiosity about our fellow travelers in this world and our willingness to share our stories and listen carefully to theirs, make us more recognizable; our stories transform us from stranger to acquaintance and sometimes to friend.

As for The Elms and the car show? I find it wonderful, but not surprising, that even with the original owners long gone and the garage empty, The Elms has some of its own stories, its own car talk to share. In 1936, when Edward Berwind died, his youngest sister Julia inherited the house and his fortune. She loved cars; she would take one of her luxury models out every day, to drive through Newport. This was shocking to high society – it was considered unladylike for a woman to drive herself.  Before her drive, Julia’s secretary would run a “white glove test” on the steering wheel to make sure all was clean and dust-free before she got into the driver’s seat.

Julia and her secretary would have been horrified at my shredded, faded, and discolored steering wheel cover. Pass a white glove test? Never. But who cares? That steering wheel cover has many, many stories to share. If you stop to ask.