In the months after my mother died in Sept of 2007, Dad was very lonely. Austin was living with him then but had not the slightest idea of the kind of grief Dad was experiencing. So along with calling Dad every day I tried to go by and visit as much as possible. He loved to go out to eat and he loved to look at new cars.
Dad had gotten his driver's license when he was 10 years old in 1928. His dad, Irvin had bought a car but after running into a ditch and tearing up a fence or killing livestock (I can't remember which) he turned the driving over to Bill. That was the biginning of a lifelong love affair with the automobile. After a serious illness at the age of 72, which kept him in a coma for 3 months and in the hospital for 6 months he could no longer drive. So the chauffeuring was turned over to my mom Faye, a reluctant driver at best. Dad had always picked out the cars so when Mom became the driver she insisted that
she get to pick out the kind of car
she wanted which was a Cadillac De Ville. Dad didn't mind that, as much a losing control so even though she was drving he told her
how to drive. Once when they were driving to Nashville, Mom missed an exit. Dad was telling her "You don't know where you are going, you should have exited back there!!" Mom looked at him and said, "You know, if you didn't have to use a walker I would stop right here and make you get out!" Dad replied,"If my walker weren't in the trunk I would get out!" And so it went.
My earliest memories of cars was when I was three. We lived a block from the Ford delaership on 6th Street which was next to an ice cream arlour called "The Spa". In the 50s when the new model cars came out they would put them in the show room window with a cover over them. Everyone always wanted to be there when the new model was unveiled. Dad and I were there. There was a 1955 Ford Crown Victoria that had been customized at the factory and my dad fell in love with it and bought it. On the day he was to pick it up, still in the showroom window, he took me inside and told me to pick out any car I wanted and he would buy it for me. I remember patting the Crown Victoria on the side and saying,"Yep this is the one I want." He opened the door, I got in and we drove it out of the showroom.
When I was in college I jokingly told him I had seen the car I wanted, it was a 1973 Mach I Mustang with a 351 Cleveland engine. I came home from my holiday job one day and the phone was ringing. It was Dad. He said, "Well if you want this Mustang you better get down here and drive it." I did and it was mine.
So in his final days one of his biggest joys was to go and look at new cars. He was almost blind and couldn't even drive the Cadillac Mom had left, but he still talked about buying a new car. We drove Buicks, Mercurys and one day even ended up at the Volkswagon dealer. He asked me if I were going to buy a car what kind would I buy. I teasingly told him a Beetle convertible. He tried to get into one but with his legs were so crippled he couldn't get in it. The salesman wasn't busy and told him he would help him to get in any car he wanted to. We spent a couple of hours there that day.
Two weeks later as I was leaving to go see him before church, the assisted living center called. Dad had been sick during the night and it had continued. I rushed over to see him. His eyes and skin looked very jaundiced and after much convincing Jim and I talked him into going to the hospital. It was snowing and I had promised him that since it was Mom's birthday I would take him by the cemetery. He finally consented to go to the hospital. The next day I stayed with him before and after school. I had been there for several hours and he had fallen asleep. I decided Iwould go home and let him sleep. As I walked out of the room something stopped me. I went back and touched his cheek and said, "I love you Daddy." Without opening his eyes he said, "Love you too, Sugar." I didn't know it, but those would be the last words of his I would ever hear. He died later that night in his sleep.
Two weeks later I got a phone call. it was the salesman from the VW dealer. He said, "I have been trying to call Mr. Greenlee and can't get ahold of him, do you know where I can reach him?" I told him dad had died.
He said," I'm sorry, but he ordered a car, I think it was for his daughter, do you want to come over and at least look at it?" I got in his Cadillac and drove over to the dealership. There shiney and waiting was the cutest little VW Beetle Convertible, red, with a black top and interior. It was exactly what I would have picked out. I drove it home and left the Caddy. It was the last of his love affair with cars.
