Metal, glass, plastic, and rubber. That’s pretty much all that makes up a car. Various metals, silica, and hydrocarbons. Of course, there’s art in the right combination, the right DNA.
Take my ‘69 Lotus Elan S4, for example. To me, it’s a Mona Lisa of a car. I mean, just look at that smile! But where a car like an Elan kicks Lisa’s butt is in how it can be driven, and not just hung on a wall.
I recently spent a week vacationing on Molokai, one of the least-populated of the Hawaiian islands, both in terms of humans and human-movers. In a beach-state of mind, thoughts of art, rust, and the circle of life floated around my head.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To some, an Elan means little to nothing. To someone who loves off-roading, a Jeep is likely to be more beautiful; others find anything older than a year or so in the past downright ugly. I get it: different strokes for different folks. One is not any better than the other. Just another form of art. Some like abstract paintings, others pottery, and still others love poetry.
What completely baffles me are those people who can’t experience or appreciate automotive art. They look at a vehicle like it’s a refrigerator, an appliance to help them get from one place to another. Different strokes for different folks. Most people like the idea of chilling on a tropical island, if even just the idea of it. Some would like to spend the rest of their lives surrounded by ocean, while others would go so stir crazy mad after just a few days that they’d swim to the mainland. Again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Since I look at most things through the eyes of a driver and gearhead, I wondered about many related topics, including how many cars, given a choice, want to spend the rest of their lives on a tropical island. (Cars do have conscious thought, right?)
Molokai has no maternity ward for vehicles. Residents purchase and ship their babies from one of the other Hawaiian islands or the mainland as if they’re adopting a child from a foreign country. That intrigued me, but not as much as what happens to them once they’re there. Who services and repairs them? Apparently, no one. Just look around.
An island’s salty air, and Molokai’s intense solar radiation is a serial killer for pretty much anything made of metal, plastic and rubber. I witnessed enough murders in a week on the island to keep Law & Order running for another twenty years! Car after truck after van after SUV after construction vehicle were beaten, slashed, and shot, left to die on the side of a road, in fields, or randomly parked in yards. And then, bury themselves.
For all of us, to some degree, the BIG question is what happens to us after we die. And what about our mechanical friends on Molokai? What happens to them when they reach the end of their life on an island without an infrastructure to give them a proper burial?
One in particular fascinated me: an old Chevy Astro van. It was gradually being absorbed back into the earth, and one day will become the original metal, silica and hydrocarbon that was driven around the island for some number of years, taking its owner from humble homes to Paddler’s Cafe, from Halawa to Maunaloa, and (to borrow a line from the song, Island Style) “from the mountain to the ocean, from the windward to the leeward side.”
Hawai’i, its beauty and the emotions it triggers, holds a special place in my heart. Each time we go to the islands, I wonder if we’re disturbing something that should be left on its own. For centuries, Hawaiians have suffered in so many ways, from their kingdom being overthrown to native language looked down upon and driven out of those who the islands belong to, and from disease to the recent wildfires on Maui ultimately caused by the decades of abuse of the lands. Yet, Hawai’i is pretty much the only place that I can truly relax and think deeply; it’s my happy place.
Feeling relaxed and happy, I also felt sad for the vehicles I saw on Molokai that resemble some of those who have suffered on the islands.
Driving around the Molokai, observing the gradual burial of these hulks of neglected metal, silica and hydrocarbon, I thought about taking photographs of them, turning them into a coffee table book. But, would that be disrespectful?
Rather than spiral downward into sadness, I choose to look up, and appreciate what we have, not what we don’t have. I think about the beauty of an island like Molokai, and even of the utilitarianism of the appliance-like vehicles here. There is art in good ol’ hard work, and so many of them gave their lives in the service of their owners. I wanted to show them the respect they deserve, honor them, give them an opportunity for others to appreciate them for what they gave – their life.
Life, death, and the art of metal, silica and hydrocarbons. Hmmmm… maybe that’s the title of my coffee table book?
As I age, thoughts of what I want the last years of my life to be like are infrequent, but not uncommon. What is common, I think, is seeing myself being taken care of in a comfortable location, with friends and family not far away. Like an oil change anywhere but on Molokai, medical attention would be a regular service check.
When looking at that Chevy Astro van, or a Town Car heading back to where it once came from, though, the idea of just being absorbed back into the earth on a tropical island is not a bad vision of a way to finish out a life. As Neil Young sang, “Rust never sleeps.” Especially on Molokai.
By the throb of your engine you will fuel yourself until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for rust you are and to rust you will return. "Bentley Chapter 1, verse 10"