The Electric Lemon

Brought to you by the late Father Media, a wise soul who gave his eldest daughter a lemon and taught her to make lemonade.

The Electric Lemon was a full-size pickup in blazing highlighter yellow. It had been a city service/safety vehicle in its previous life, and Dad got a good deal on it and never repainted it. It even had a swiveling spotlight on top, which I was forbidden to use to blind my friends when I encountered them out cruising. And I did not do much cruising in that truck, because it's dreadfully difficult to sneak away for a joy ride in a small town when you're driving an Electric Lemon. Sometimes I wondered if Dad bought the most garish thing available for just that reason.

He didn't buy it to please Mother Media, that's for sure. As she mentioned in a guest blog post last year, "I hated that vehicle. It embarrassed me, but it made a lot of fishing trips & hauled a lot of firewood, which was its job description. It also hauled a couple Christmas trees & is responsible for making me wet my pants while sliding sideways down Redwater Hill when one of the tire chains snapped. Ugh!" Well, at least it was already yellow.

I did have to take the Lemon out on the road sometimes, though. Dad insisted that I learn to handle the full-size, stick-shift pickup on gravel and snow before I was allowed to drive the much more glamorous family car, a maroon Oldsmobile half a block long. Driving lessons were a Dad job, so he and I spent some harrowing hours on the back roads outside of town the summer I turned 14. (Yes, they let 14-year-olds drive in South Dakota. Might as well; most of them have been behind one ranch-vehicle wheel or other since their feet could reach the pedals anyway.)

This was yet another wise move on Dad's part. Thanks to his patient instruction, I grew into a capable driver who can handle most types of vehicles under most road and weather conditions. I've owned several stick shifts since then, including my very first car, Rene the Renault; the Green Albatross, which was a nice ride until my ex got ahold of it; and my little black Saturn, which was a nice ride until some farthead in a Plymouth plowed into the back of it. Gravel roads don't faze me because I know how to take them nice and slow. Snow doesn't faze me because I know when not to hit the brakes and how to cope with a skid. Every time I do, I'm rewarded with sweet memories of Dad.

Photos today? NO. Just think yellowy thoughts.

Today around the world: August 31 is White Rose Day (in honor of the late Princess Di) in Australia.