The Blaneys’ Plymouth

The Blaneys’ Plymouth

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

Simone Weil

Mrs. Blaney lived at the end of our street in an old, Spanish style house, whose every room opened to the garden. The house had been the original farm house of the orange orchard that became our neighborhood in the mid-fifties. The house was probably that way well before the orange orchards, and it’s still there. 

We moved in during the mid-sixties, and every family had at least a dozen trees full of oranges in their yard. There were twenty-eight kids on our block when we moved in; I was seven years old, my sister was nine, and we were absolutely thrilled, as our previous street in West Los Angeles had only two other kids on it, besides my sister and me.

I often played with the Blaney kids, and particularly Robin, who was a year older than me. The Blaneys were the only family I ever knew that had a bomb shelter in their backyard. It had an old steel door that cranked open, exposing a dark stairway to the cramped space below. 

Mrs. Blaney was a genius, way ahead of the times. She was a scientist, taught math, and held many technological patents. Her husband was also a scientist, though I don’t remember much about him, other than that he was the tallest guy I had ever seen.  

In my memory, they lived an ultra-quiet life, and I don’t recall them ever having anyone over or going on vacation, though that could be just my imagination.

When I was around nineteen, Mrs. Blaney must have noticed my interest in old cars, as she had to drive past our house everyday to get to hers. 

She stopped one day and told me she would like to sell me her car… for a dollar. She said she’d rather just give me the car, but she needed to sell it to me for tax purposes. 

It was a turquoise blue, 1956 Plymouth four-door sedan, with a push button shift on the dash. 

The car didn’t run, and the tires were flat. She hadn’t driven the car for years and had a new car that she used instead. The Plymouth just sat there on their long driveway. I went up there with some friends, charged the battery, filled the tires, checked the oil, and drove the car down the block.  

I was a member of the Model A Ford Club (and still am), and they had a rally that night. The main event was a scavenger hunt; my friends and I took the Plymouth to the rally and won first place, a twenty-five dollar prize.

I drove the car around for several months and then sold it to someone else, for about three hundred dollars. 

I can’t think of anything I ever did for Mrs. Blaney, other than wave to her as she drove by all those years. 

But she certainly was kind to me. 

-Hank