Enzo Ferraris Aren’t Just For Dudes.

Let’s go on a road trip with a Young Dude I used to know and become our 9-year-old selves. It’s May. Temperatures in New England are rising, so we’ll take the Enzo Ferrari out of storage.

Young Dude will be our driver; we are placing him in command of the super sexy cockpit. Our Enzo Ferrari is red. SO RED. (Believe it or not, Young Dude and his dad know the owner of this dream machine—one of only 400 to ever be created on Earth.)

Blessedly, it’s 2018 and roadways still exist for the classic pleasures of motorcar cruising. We won’t be alone on the roads because as soon as the fruit trees are blooming and the honeybees are zooming in the northeast—upsy daisy go the garage doors of car enthusiasts everywhere and from those protective chambers emerge some of springtime’s most beautiful babies—born when art, design, and beauty feathers a nest with power, speed, and technology.

Young Dude plans to catch frogs, turtles, and snakes along our routes. If we drive past rock shops he’ll pull over so we can all take a look, though we all prefer finding rocks and fossils on our own. As for snacks, we’ll be totally bummed if seasonal ice cream shops aren’t open yet.

Our driver Young Dude is an Uber Dreamster. He dreams all the time. He dreams unconsciously and deliberately and, some would say, irresponsibly. Young Dude is driven more by his dreams than his grades and it appears he is on track to flunk out of fourth-grade. If that happens, we are down with blasting into the sunrise with him. In fact, we’ve hatched a plan to drive our Enzo off the cliffs of Schafer Canyon Road in Canyonlands National Park, which would be more like a runway for the Enzo because everyone knows our Enzo can fly.

(Note to driving enthusiasts everywhere: Schafer Canyon Road in Canyonlands National Park in Moab, Utah is a still-surviving terrifying roadway. If you haven’t already done so, drive it before they pave it, put up guard rails, and install a toll booth. Our family did it in a big Yukon. A complete and memorable white-knuckle frightfest.)

* * * * * * * * *

After our road trip, Young Dude drives the Enzo Ferrari to school where he glides the work of art into a conspicuous parking place in the center of the playground.

He gets us to school just in time for English class.

The teacher hands out a writing assignment.

Ready? Remember, we are nine years old and we are trapped in the fourth grade.

Here’s the prompt: Write about a magic stone that when you skip it across a pond, it comes skipping back to you.

* * * * * * * * * *

Here’s Young Dude’s unedited story, penned when he really was nine years old (a long time ago) and he was my happily-obsessed-with-all-things-cars-trucks-planes-and-trains son.

Dude and the Awesome Pebble

Once in a strange time, there was a weird place called Dudeland. Everyone wore sunglasses, Hawaiian T’s, and shorts and greased back hair. And there was a curious little 9-year-old called Dude McDude. He loved Lamborghini’s and Porsche’s and Ferrari’s and any other kind of sports car. He had a friend called Dudical O’Dude. One of their favorite things to do was to swim and skip pebbles. So here is the radical story about Dude and the awesome pebble!

One day, Dude and Dudical went for a ride in Mr. McDude’s radical Baja Beast. They were headed for a lake in Lamborghini Land. After about fifty billion light years, they were at the stoked lake. They immediately put on their Hawaiian-designed swim shorts and jumped in to play a game of “Lamborghini Diablo.”

They saw all kinds of fish: the Dudefish, Dudish Idol, Picasso Dude, HammerDude Shark, AngelDude, and the Puffing Dudey.

When they were done swimming, they started to skip pebbles. Dude skipped two, then Dudical skipped two. Dude skipped his third. It did three skips—but then began to skip backwards! He pondered. Stumped, he put the stone in his pocket, walked up the sandy beach, and left.

That night, he remembered the stone. Did it really mean something? Yes! He knew it did! He pulled the pebble out of his pocket. Whoa! It was glowing silver in the shape of a Diablo SV! He passed out and fell asleep.

The following morning, he woke up and looked out the window. The sky was blue, the grass was green, the driveway was filled with Diablos…wha…Diablos?! He took the pebble out of his pocket again. But it was now glowing red in a Porsche shape! He looked out into the backyard and saw…Oh Boy…

* * * * * * * * *

Oh Boy is right.

My life as mom to a natural born automobile enthusiast has been enriched by my son’s quests for speed, gorgeous design, and history as told through the stories of people affected by similar, lifelong passionate pursuits. Therefore, last year my husband and I finally reserved a patch of lush green grass on the infield of the race track at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut for three days of camping with some of the most beautiful cars still being driven—physically and mentally—by Uber Dreamsters fast around a race track. We set up our gypsy glam wagon while our son set up a tent amid BMW’s, Porsches, and exotic British Sports Cars. It was Labor Day Weekend when Lime Rock Park hosts Historic Festival and although we’ve been going to Lime Rock Park since my son was a little boy, we’d never attended Historic Festival.

The festival is jammed with vintage car races, vintage race car and sports car parades, car auctions, and an event I recommend to all: Sunday in the Park—Concours d’Elegance and Gathering of the Marques. This is a special experience where more than 300 vintage automobiles along with their histories (as told by their devoted owners) are on display around the racetrack in a setting that becomes an interactive outdoor concert of story telling, wishing out loud, and gratitude—because it is always restorative to my soul to meet other people who are willing to share their passions. It is also always fascinating to have history revealed through the front windshields and rearview mirrors of vintage cars and the goggles of devoted drivers. It rained hard for Sunday in the Park so I couldn’t use my camera to photograph the magnificent motorcars. But I did take some random pics during racing events on the sunnier days of the weekend.

If you or someone you love is an automobile enthusiast, you will understand how much I have enjoyed my newfound car-influenced experiences, all of which enhanced my life when I had a boy who loved cars and, through his undying obsessions, inspired me to become a bit cuckoo for them too. (Full disclosure, Matchbox cars and Hotwheels were some of my favorite toys when I was a little girl.)

It is indeed finally springtime in the northeast. As I notice flowering trees and shrubs, I am also smiling at the blooming of pretty cars zipping around on the roadways. As I listen to the spring peepers and wood frogs, I am also tuning in to the wistful conversations of winter-weary folk dreaming up plans for summertime road trips with unknown destinations.

Yet I can’t help but sense that there are, in our super-speedy modern world, spring breezes blowing in new directions. I wonder…how many more seasons will we hear the rumbling engines of drivers venturing out and about for breathtaking exhilaration on the open road? Or the calm cruise of country drives? Or the excitement of life-changing road trips that puts them in the cockpit of a motorcar where they take control over journeys that don’t need predetermined finish lines?

It’s true, self-driving cars hum on our horizons, ready to transport lazy minds and worn-out souls to nowheres. All I can think is this: How could such a machine ever know that as soon as life says you need to put the brakes on those dreams, it’s time to step on the gas?

* * * * * * * * *

Labor Day Weekend Historic Festival.

Bucolic Lime Rock Park, Connecticut. Trackside camping.

Our campsite.

My son and I trackside.

In the evenings, we rode our bikes around the racetrack as the local fauna made brave crossings on the now-quiet track.

The legendary, super elite Enzo Ferrari.

In the evenings, after dinner, music other than the sounds of tuned engines by my son and his dad.

When my son was not yet 12 years old, everyone looked the other way at Lime Rock and allowed him to try Endurance Karting for the first time in a field of racers much older and more experienced. The race was faster and more serious than I thought it would be. The newbie racer finished fourth to his father’s and his father’s friend’s second-to-last and last place finishes. I was glad when that ended well.

For his 21st birthday, I made my son a monster truck cake. (Donuts for the wheels.) We gave him a day of racing instruction at Lime Rock Park with professional drivers. He had to get his car track ready and show up before the sun was up and the fog had lifted for inspection. Then, he spent the day alternating class room instruction with on-the-track fast and intensive racing. He had one spin out which probably scared only me. Curious, I asked his driver to take me as a passenger during one of the professionals only races. The ride, without a doubt, was the most terrifying experience I have ever had. I didn’t like it at all. Nevertheless, I gained awareness and appreciation for the focused mind and intensely-skilled reflexes of a race car driver and the unbelievable heat a race car’s tires produce after speeding around a track!

Ready to learn how to race.

Leading the pack.

Sun setting over Lime Rock Park. Another day with cars when all ended well.

Another experience of car racing lore which taught me respect for a race car driver’s necessary combinations of healthy body, healthy mind, speed, skill, and intelligence came my way on top of “America’s Mountain” in Colorado. Pike’s Peak is known for inspiring Katharine Lee Bates to write “America the Beautiful.” It is also where the Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (“Race to the Clouds”) takes place offering all drivers climbs to 14, 110′ in little over 12 miles with 156 serious curves. The tales of this race enticed me to ride bikes down the historic roadway with my husband. Even on a bike, the hairpin turns were nerve-wracking for me. I would love to watch someone drive a car up this road, fast. (The speeds at which they do it are beyond impressive.)

Electric race cars already conquer the Pike’s Peak International Hill Climb. The EV’s (Electric Vehicles) can make the climb without concern for the altitude changes, which had always been a factor throughout history due to the loss of power as internal combustion engines react to diminishing oxygen in higher altitudes. (I think. Or something like that.)

I gave my son’s first car, a Cozy Coupe, a new name for him: the Crazy Coupe. He could drive it without snow tires through New England’s most challenging snowstorms until spring.

* * * * * * * * *

Twenty Fun.

Do you remember when you believed reindeer could fly?

Close your eyes.

It’s nighttime.

The night is so big. The cold is so warm. The snow falls and falls and falls.

Every snowflake is smiling.

The reindeer appear in rainbowed arcs from another side of the nighttime, flying forth on a trail of shining stars that look as though they are bursting and popping, yet they are as quiet as the gentle swish of a salamander’s tail.

The reindeer land in your backyard. Their coats of brown fur glisten in moonshine that smells like fresh honey and tastes like bright yellow.

Shiny-belled harnesses ring—winter’s own music—a thousand joyful nightingales singing Christmas carols.

Majestic antlers reach almost as high as your bedroom window where you are watching from the second floor of your home. Everyone else is fast asleep.

The reindeer stamp their hooves deep into the snow, jingle their bells, and—looking up—find you in your bedroom window, believing.

This gives them the courage to keep flying.

********

(Photo by Aunt Heidi.)

********

Today is my daughter’s 21st birthday. Twenty Fun she says.

She was born to forever honor and keep special the expansive worlds of childhood play and creativity. She wrote her first manifesto as a toddler and has never doubted her words and all they can accomplish:

She believes reindeer can fly and she believes in you, too. If you’re having trouble finding your wings, or calming an aching heart, she might cook you an unforgettable meal or leave a note under your pillow or on your desk.

She’ll pick a posy of wildflowers and arrange them just so in a paper cup and place them in the middle of a picnic table. She’ll bring you a butterfly.

She’ll catch the biggest fish for you. Or the cutest creature colored orange.

She’ll hike all day in the rain with you. She’ll bake for you. She’ll paint hearts and rainbows.

She cheers for the home teams. She plays Christmas carols on the piano. She plays love songs, too, with her boyfriend.

She’ll play board games and watch Disney movies, over and over again until everyone feels like going out for a night on the town, flying around, dressed in princess garb or mermaid skirts or cool boots. Get on your boots. Cowgirl boots. Hunting boots. Ski boots. Big city girl boots.

The spirit of party reigns in my daughter’s world. In fact, she has taught me that Party Spirit is the best remedy for the doldrums and the sads. It’s also a necessary component to most every day. When she was a toddler, she would awaken on random days and declare Dress Days. We had to wear dresses all day. You could choose different dresses throughout the day. I was a tomboy mother without dresses in my closet, but I became one fair lady on Dress Days.

The rules for Dress Day were simple. Wear what you want, in whatever combinations you like, all the way down to your shoes, which don’t have to go on a “right” foot.

********

My daughter taught me to Fling a Little Festive into Everything You Do.

********

Joyce Carol Oates wrote in her essay, “Beginnings,” that the impulse to create is utterly mysterious. “…’art’—originates in play…it remains forever, in its deepest impulse…a celebration of the (child’s?) imagination…”

Oates headlines her essay with a quote from Andre Gide: “I will maintain that the artist needs only this; a special world of which he alone has the key.”

And Charles Baudelaire said: “Genius is no more than childhood captured at will.”

—And one day, recently, when I asked my daughter if she had had a happy childhood, she said:

“I don’t know. It’s not over yet.”

********

Is your childhood over yet? Have you stopped believing reindeer can fly?

Do you love your birthday?

—Or is age something that takes you further and further away from your youth and its attendant genius, instead of delivering you deeper and deeper into those special worlds where only your heart can unlock your own unique perspectives on what’s so wonderful about being alive—and then share them with the rest of us.

My daughter loves her birthday. It’s the one day every year when the party is about the arrival of her world into this world.

Everyone has a birthday. It’s a day better than New Year’s Day for beginnings and celebrations and the sharing of you with all of us.

Do you remember when your lungs drank up that first breath of air before you were plunged into childhood?

Close your eyes. Take a deep breath.

“There is a fountain of youth: It’s your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.” Sophia Loren

Let the breath go. Follow it!

********

Happy Twenty Fun to my daughter! Drink up that first breath again. Keep drinking that energy. Keep playing. Keep sharing the creative genius of your youth.

It never gets old!

********

Snowflakes.

Snowflakes, by Emily Dickinson

Snow flakes.

I counted till they danced so

Their slippers leaped the town,

And then I took a pencil

To note the rebels down.

And then they grew so jolly

I did resign the prig,

And ten of my once stately toes

Are marshaled for a jig!

*****

Today is the day before my husband’s birthday. He’s a January boy, he loves to ski, and this year a perfect snowstorm arrived in time to help me decorate the house and prepare for his birthday.

Many years ago, when my son was a grammar school boy, the fourth graders had an event called Business Hour. I think they had it once a month or so. During Business Hour, the kids traded arts and crafts or services or baked goods. They earned a form of wampum through completed homework, which they could use to buy anything during Business Hour, or they could just work out their own barter deals. I used to volunteer during Business Hour and ended up shopping most of the time because the kids created things that thrilled my soul.

I have always been a big fan of Kid Art. When you have Kid Art hanging in your house, the prig is constantly reminded to chill and the toes are kept loose for jigs, and the rebel spirit of kid confidence reminds me to infuse a little snowday joy into the times of my life.

All those years ago, I acquired a collection of hand-cut snowflakes from one of my son’s classmates at a Business Hour classroom trade show. Ever since, I have used the treasured collection to decorate the house for my husband’s birthday. I tape each snowflake, delicately, to the bay window near our winter dining area which looks out onto a snowy expanse of gardens where I love being distracted by the comings and goings of robins roosting in the juniper tree to eat the berries. We have a view of our barn, too, when we sit down to share our meals.

*****

Snowflakes. Harbingers of the happy dance. Here are some from my prized collection:

And here they are arranged in compositions on the window for our dining pleasure:

Chocolate Covered Marshmallows. Cold Roasted.

My daughter had a roasted marshmallow collection. I liked it the best of all her collections. But it’s a tough call.

Her feather collection was neat, too. I remember one tiny feather, and the way her small fingers pincer gripped it in a meadow where it hid, trying to pretend to be a blade of grass. We were out hiking. As soon as my daughter spied the feather; she captured it.

She organized her collection of feathers by sticking them into a repurposed block of styrofoam. We knew the blue jay’s feather, but everything else was known as biggest, smallest, tiniest, prettiest, coolest, best polka dots, best stripes. The collection is still on display in the library upstairs.

Her roasted marshmallow collection, though, was unique. She started it when she was in third or fourth grade because by then she was a champion marshmallow roaster.

Marshmallow roasting–real marshmallow roasting–inspires a life-long appreciation for patience. The fire has to be just right. (Use glowing coals, not flames.) The stick has to be just right. (Au natural, native to the campfire location, tip nicely cleaned with a few swipes of a jackknife.) And the marshmallows can’t be knock offs. (Jet-Puffed.)

At our campsites, the kids chopped the wood and built the fires. It was a wild thrill for them to be able to swing the axe, especially if they brought friends who never got to go camping. We had some good competitions setting logs up on a stump and waiting to see who could split them with one slam. There were a lot of strikes, but that just made the kids more determined to figure it out. Wood chopping uses the same tricks as baseball and golf–you gotta keep your eye on the ball–and, you have to keep your grip tight on the axe. We never lost any fingers or toes or arms or legs. Or noses. No eyes ever got poked out with the marshmallow sticks. No one’s hair ever went up in flames once the campfire started to roar. I’ll always be grateful to the gypsy winds for blowing fair through our camps.

So, my daughter’s Perfectly Roasted Marshmallow Collection was dedicated to preserving marshmallows that had been slow turned over the campfire coals just right–until a brown as soft as my daughter’s sun-tanned skin appeared–and then–ever so carefully–only for a few more turns beyond, in order to form a coating of delicate crunch. All gypsies admire excellence in the campfire arts.

Marshmallow roasting is a many-splendored thing. During one excursion to find the perfect stick, my daughter was led astray into a thicket on the shores of Lake Champlain in Vermont. She claims a flash of light distracted her and seduced her curiosity. Into the thicket she went as the sun set. I thought she was lost, but before panic stopped my heart, I heard her gleeful shouts and, soon after, I saw the silhouette of my little girl, back lit by the last glows of the day, leaping up and down. She had come upon the nearly-complete skeleton of a deer and when she showed me where it was, I couldn’t figure out how in the world she had ever crawled into such a tangled hedgerow. We braided the vertebrae onto a rope and marveled at how precisely they connected, one to the other. You can read all about how the world was made, but when your daughter finds a deer skeleton and you play around with it like a puzzle, suddenly the hand of God strokes your soul.

Here’s a simple way to make chocolate-covered marshmallows, sans the fuss of a campout. They are surprisingly fun to eat and there’s no waste–you eat the stick, too.

1. Put sturdy pretzel sticks into big marshmallows and line them up on parchment on a tray. I used Snyder’s pretzel sticks–not the skinny ones. You want some heft.

2. Set up bowls of decorating bling.

3. Rig up a double boiler. (I put a stainless steel bowl over a pot of water.) Break up a bar of dark chocolate–I used 70% dark, but you could use semi-sweet, too. I used one bar and it coated about twenty marshmallows.

4. Melt the chocolate and dip the marshmallows. You can dunk them or dip them.

5. Dab and dress the marshmallows up with chosen accessories. Here’s my version of desirable food porn:

6. Let the chocolate set outside if it’s wintertime and you live in a wonderfully wintry place. Keep a close eye out for bandits! Only takes a few minutes for the cold to roast the chocolate and create that perfect coating of crunch.

7. Check them out!

8. Wrap them up. I use butcher’s string to tie the sandwich bags. I cut off the zip-loc tops.

ONE TASTE HITS THE SPOT.

Gypsy Tricks. Late Bloomers.

My daughter is the only member of our family who has read the complete series of Harry Potter books. She has read them several times. She became Hermione when she was ten and slipped away from dull suburbia by often placing an artistically, hand-rendered note on her tent during our campouts: “Do Not Disturb.” We knew she wished to be left alone, immersed in any one of the Harry Potter books and her most exciting, magical world of true friends.

I was the first in our family to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. My son followed suit, in one long sway on a hammock at Nickerson State Park, Cape Cod, when he was five. We had a Harry Potter birthday party for him that fall season, right around the time of Halloween. It was epic. I was Minerva McGonagall, the Deputy Headmistress. My husband was Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster. Our gypsy wagon, a monstrous and beloved RV, filled the role of the Hogwart’s Express and delivered the party wizards to the local indoor pool where we played our own version of Quidditch. Pool noodles served as broomsticks and every boy believed he soared through the water on a Nimbus 2000.

In those days, few children knew about Harry and Hogwart’s, so I had to scour the countryside for Chocolate Frogs and such. There wasn’t one iota of commercialism surrounding the soon-to-be-blockbuster books. Our imaginations ran wild planning the party. We transformed our home into the Leaky Cauldron Cafe and the basement became Professor Snape’s Potions Mixing Class. It was scary—some kids preferred to stay out of the basement.

My son read every book, except for the last one. By then, his own life was being transformed by a dreary New England prep school where the whole business of real battles for good and evil were well underway, in the flesh.

My husband never read any of the books. Nor did he watch any of the movies. But, one day, in New York City, while he was waiting for me to finish drinking a cup of tea, he turned on the TV in our hotel room. There, on the screen, he witnessed dragons being born into the hands of Harry Potter and his friends. Soon, the screen erupted into dragon-dark mayhem. “Wow,” my husband said. “Did our kids watch this when they were little?”

Later, we set out to find New York City’s version of a Diagon Alley magic shop. It still exists, but who knows for how long. The shop—Tannen’s—has been in business since 1925. It’s small, the lights are dim, and no one protects you when you choose to go through the door—where spirits and ghosts remain. The shop is in Herald Square, 45 West 34th Street, on the sixth floor. It is down the hall from the vestiges of Martinka and Company, which only exists in cyberspace nowadays, but was once presided over by Houdini. In fact, on the wall inside of Tannen’s, there are a few Houdini artifacts worth mulling over.

Once inside Tannen’s, magicians and tricksters will play with every unknown thought pattern that runs through your mind. They will make your eyes get bigger and bigger. They will draw delight from all the recessed memories of your childhood. They will cause you to stumble and fall and laugh about it. I recognized some of the magicians—many of them were the odd little children that hovered next to me on the outskirts of schoolyard playgrounds. They ate glue with me and licked their lips incessantly and couldn’t stop blinking their eyes or looking for something else to do besides sit still and ace worksheets. Their pants were too short, their hair never behaved, and they couldn’t read or spell or memorize their times tables. They never cared that what I wanted more than anything else was to be a boy. I dressed like a boy and acted like a boy, but when the bullies came after us, I failed at fighting like a boy and ended up in a heap, with the others, on the edge of the playground.

The magicians inside Tannen’s must have all received their letters of admission to Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as the years went by. They now know that the rest of us are Muggles and they are not. They performed simple and complicated card tricks, juggling tricks, and foamy ball tricks. There were human-scaled boxes I could use to saw my husband apart and boxes I could use to stab him repeatedly with swords.

To walk into Tannen’s is completely free, as is the entertaining hocus pocus that ensues. I drank up and let the tricksters have their way with me. My husband, on the other hand, felt his mind twisting inside out. It began to occur to him that his Muggle parents might have destroyed a long-ago letter of admission to Hogwarts, with his name on it. The cases filled with magical madnesses intrigued him. He purchased invisible decks of cards and video instruction on how to realize your repressed wizard self.

Yesterday, I came home late from a meeting. My husband entertained me with a magic trick. I was duly impressed and asked him how he learned to do it. He admitted that, instead of checking his endless email and phone messages, he listened to and watched his instructive magic video the whole ride home from work, on the commuter train from Boston.

I thought it so wonderful! After years of stressing out as a Muggle, working late, dragging his feet over to Boston’s South Station to take the train home—he had finally found his way to King’s Cross Station, Platform 9 3/4, and broken through the barrier to climb aboard the Hogwart’s Express!

Not only that, but he is an uber gypsy dude—the only one heading west from Boston, out to the suburbs, being educated via magic-instruction videos. Perhaps it’s a newfangled version of a Hogwart’s “on-line” degree for late bloomers.

Excursions

The Gypsy Apprentice

Category Archives: Birthday Party Themes

Enzo Ferraris Aren’t Just For Dudes.

Twenty Fun.

Snowflakes.

Chocolate Covered Marshmallows. Cold Roasted.

Gypsy Tricks. Late Bloomers.