Give Me Libby or Give Me Death

Elizabeth Sheeran, 90. Photo by granddaughter Kenna Klosterman

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Hello. This is the story of a Granny, and her car. The Granny is named Libby Sheeran, and she died eleven years ago. The car, however, did not die, which is the point of this story. I have told parts of it before, but there is a new wrinkle.

The car already had many wrinkles because it was born in 2001 and purchased just before 9/11, back when all things were very different and, in many ways, much simpler. The Honda Accord, for example, was very simple. It had no bells and whistles. Grandma Libby didn’t need ‘em or want ‘em; she bought the perfect car for herself. It is a generic looking car, a grey Honda Accord. A triumph of function over form. A rectangle. A box. The color of cement.

Libby was a remarkable woman in many respects, not the least of which was that when she died — she had been a fanatically frugal widow who had unscrewed half the light bulbs in an overhead fixture to conserve electricity — she left, at her death, six million dollars to her descendants, to the absolute astonishment of her family.

Plus, a car. Rachel, my girlfriend, the youngest and most destitute grandchild, got the car.

It wasn’t much to look at, even at first, but then Rachel got to work on it. She proceeded to abuse it mightily via dents and dings — Rachel drives spiritedly — but also to care for it, mechanically, with love, in tribute to Grandma.

There is another fact you need to know. When Rachel inherited the car, it was 12 years old and had 7,000 miles on it. It was a literal cliche. It was a car that that had been driven by a prudent, cautious little old lady, and only back and forth to church, a church that was two blocks away from her home.

Grandma Libby was a devout Roman Catholic who had four daughters, born basically one year apart, until she figured out that the Church, for all its wonders and splendors and all the fine teachings and charity, wasn’t scientifically, physiologically right about everything. Libby Sheeran stopped having babies after number four. She was a practical woman who learned from life. She was a wonderful mother and grandma. She took her responsibilities seriously, as she took everything.

She died in a hospital in Virginia D.C. in 2013, and one of the last things she did was have rather intimate a conversation with a nurse who was treating her. “I see you had a bilateral,” Libby said. A bilateral was a form of surgery to repair cleft palates, a surgery so perfect it eliminated most of the stigma.

The nurse was dumbfounded. No one noticed this.

“I had the honor of working with Dr. Millard,” Libby said. For most of her career, Libby had been an operating-room nurse. Dr. Ralph Millard had pioneered the surgery. It is named after him, and will be forevermore.

“Dr. Millard did my surgery,” the nurse said.

Libby Sheeran’s final days of life were sweetened by her extraordinary nursing care, and then Rachel got the car.

The only person of my acquaintance who takes less pride than I do in the physical appearance of his or her automobile is Rachel Manteuffel, 39, of Washington D.C. On the outside, her 23-year old grey Honda Accord resembles an enormous pebble. On the inside, it resembles a Dumpster parked behind an Italian restaurant in Queens NY in the heat of the summer.

But, mechanically, it has been great, until four days ago, when it broke down on a highway. It had to be towed to a service station. Its transmission had died, and would cost more than $3,000 to be replaced. The car now has 75,000 miles on it and looks like hell on wheels. It is 23 years old. It is not worth anything approaching $3,000.

Except. You know. There are other ways of looking at things. Other ways of being prudent.

On the wall of a house Rachel and I share is a certain tableau, the four objects photographed below. In the middle is a timepiece manufactured by the Seth Thomas Clock Co. of Thomaston, Conn., in 1895, during the second Grover Cleveland administration, and repaired by me a month ago. This is one of the few actual skills I have.

The clock was initially sold, in 1895, as an advertising prop to a Cleveland watch store that still exists. The veneered wood is from an oak tree likely planted before The Civil War. On either side of it are framed photographs from 1927, from The New York Times, under the headline “Freed in Fascisti Slaying.” It is reporting the acquittal of two anti-fascists in the Bronx for the murder of a fascist leader who was himself a murderer. The acquitted men were almost certainly guilty. They had some of the greatest lawyers who ever lived, and who took on the case for political reasons. Grinning, in the accompanying photos, were the three defense attorneys, two of whom were quite famous at the time: Clarence Darrow, Arthur Garfield Hayes, and Isaac Shorr, who was my Grandpa.

Peeking out from the bottom is a stereo cabinet I carpentered for my children in 1992, when I had just been diagnosed with a disease then considered to be fatal. I had no carpentry skills — it is an over-engineered mess — but I had intense desire to do something … lasting.

The past is not always dead. It doesn’t have to be. There are ways it can stay alive, almost forever. You have to give that some respect.

I made all the right arguments to Rachel: This is imprudent, kid. Your Grandma was a practical woman. She would have understood. You don’t throw good money after bad. You don’t waste dollars being sentimental … not, at least, to honor this Grandma. This practical Grandma.

In desperation, appealing to Rachel’s bleeding heart, which is robust and frankly beautiful, I told her that if she bought a new car, one with a stick shift — this is a personal fanaticism of mine — that I would donate an equal amount to orphans in a starving continent.

Nah. I knew where this was going before it ended. Here’s to you, Grandma Libby, and may you live forever.

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Okay, here are today’s Gene Pool Gene Polls.

Now we are at the sacred moment in which we enter the real-time Questions and Observations segment of The Gene Pool. If you are reading this in Real Time please keep refreshing the screen to update your Qs and Os and get Gene’s Answers. Many of the Qs and Os today are in response to Gene’s calls for Never Have I Ever nominations both honoring and ridiculing the childhood dumb party game.

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Q: Never have I ever pooped in my pants.  I realize this is untrue, because of infancy but as a woman I am stating it nonetheless.   

A: You are a wonderful woman and as an internationally respected journalist, I hereby certify that you have never pooped in your pants. You may use this certificate in the future for proof.

TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this on an email: Go back to the top of this post and click on "View in browser" to see the full column live and online, and to read and make comments.  If you are doing it in real time, keep refreshing the screen to see the new questions and answers that appear as Gene regularly updates the post.

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Speaking of the meaning of life: You can 1) Support The Gene Pool and get full access to its goodies for the price of $5 a month, or, 2) endorse Donald Trump and everything he stands for by denying us support but reading us and then informing on us to your handlers at The Evil Trump Machine. The choice is yours. This is a free country, at least for the moment.

So:

I support The Gene Pool.

Or, alternatively, I support Donald Trump and all he stands for, and I am going to click on this link, even though it is a Donald Trump website which will probably get me on a disgusting mailing list I can never get off of.

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This is Gene. This is going to be the best line in this story, which was of course written by Rachel, because she writes all my best lines: “This car is almost old enough to rent a car.”

— Rachel also just added, by yelling it to me down a stairwell, that the car is “also old enough to run for the House of Representatives.” She is also my best editor. Tom The Butcher is nothing compared to her.

Also, thank you to reader April Musser, who pointed out there is no tasteful orange button with which to send in Qs and O’s. Here it is, with a deliberate misspelling.

Q: Never have I ever had sex with a Trumper, even a physically attractive one,  

A:  Okay, okay, fine BUT have you ever had sex with ANYONE? Do you see my point?  This may not be a bragging point.   —

Q: Never have I ever ridden a motorcycle. Never have I ever knelt in a church. (I’m Jewish, but I’ve been at church services). Never have I ever eaten tripe. Never have I ever gone to the bathroom without washing my hands afterwards. Never have I ever failed a class. Never have I ever ridden an inversion coaster without being VERY sorry.

A: Thank you. You made me look up “inversion coaster,” and I will never forgive you for it.

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Q: I have never ever watched Seinfeld, Cheers, Sex and the City or Friends. I am 74 years old.

A: Holy shit.   Are you still alive?  Prove it.  Wait, did you live most of your life in a geodesic dome in Antarctica? —

Q: I love the old clocks, they are so gorgeous! I had a fake/new Regulator clock only because the old ones I'd find out in the Virginia antique stores were so expensive. It worked wonderfully, traveled with me all over, and I donated it finally to the next lucky person when my partner couldn't stand the clicking, ticking sounds. The older ones just sound so much more decisive, strong, and sure, you are tempting me to go looking for an original. I don't, however, have such a very cool story next to which I could hang it! PS - Go Libby! Lynne Larkin

A: I will repair an old clock you get. But you must consult me in advance. Don’t EVER get a new old clock. Get an old clock that is not working.

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This is Gene. I am frankly exhausted, and going to disappear now.

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