The Inquiring Manatee

Requiescat in Pontiac

    

Though not unexpected, General Motors' announcement today that it will eliminate the Pontiac in 2010 filled me with nostalgia for my first car -- a cream-colored 1953 Pontiac Chieftain convertible.
     Of course, some author once said, "Nostalgia has nothing to do with memory."
     Actual memories of the car mix pleasure and embarrassment. My mother, a hard-working secretary in the textile trade, bought the car in 1956 for her twin 16-year-old sons from her boss' wife. Three years old, the car -- California license plate JNZ 032 -- had 22,000 miles on it.
     My brother Larry and I repaid our mother the $1,100 she had shelled out for the car within a few months from our earnings as Hollywood movie extras and as street-corner salesmen of summer produce, Easter lilies and Christmas trees for our uncle.
     In the Pontiac's favor, it was shiny and well-kept, with green leather seats, the suggestion of tailfins and an endless hood swathed in chrome stripes that ended with an orange plastic Indian head that lit up when the headlights went on. Chrome was slathered on everywhere. And it was a convertible.
     On the other hand, a 1953 Pontiac was an awfully unhip car for kids at Los Angeles' Hamilton High School. The car had an enormous cast-iron engine that one auto writer described as "the Abraham Lincoln Straight 8." It was a low-compression, flathead engine that put out only 122 horsepower despite its size and weight. The Hydra-Matic transmission took forever to run through all four gears from a traffic light until it shifted into fourth at 22 mph.
     For Southern California teenagers in 1956, a slow straight-8 didn't cut it. Nor did any 6-cylinder car. Only a Ford V-8 or maybe a Chevy V-8 (Chevy introduced its V-8 in 1955) was acceptable.
     The Pontiac, in short, looked like a mom's car. But we were glad to have it, washed and polished it on Saturday mornings (supervised by our neighbor's cat, Diane) and kept it until it fell apart six years later with only 62,000 miles on it; GM cars were made to look good when new but not to last very long. Chrome was of low quality, largely replaced with nickel, because of shortages during the Korean War. So the chrome didn't survive very well, especially with all the little dents and dings we put on it.
      As a soldier stationed at Fort Ord, Calif., I once got the Pontiac up to an indicated 105 mph. That was terrifying. The car was not made to go 105 mph. It was made for desperate housewives who were too depressed to do over 70.
      When the leather seats ripped, we covered them with green vinyl seat covers from Sears (or was it Pep Boys?). If I had the car again today, I'd restore the original seats, re-chrome the thing and enter it in old-car shows.
      I wish I could have that car back, with all its faults. Driving it through L.A. streets would proudly carry on the name and presence of the doomed Pontiac. And it would be an in-your-face to General Motors, a reproach for scrapping a marque that could bring such memories of its inglorious glory days of the Fifties.
 Here's a picture of our mom with the car in 1956:

The Sad Case of Natasha Richardson

   

A woman takes a fall during a ski lesson on the beginner slope at Mont Tremblant -- and ends up brain-dead?
   How awful and bizarre is that?
   One news report noted that poor Natasha Richardson was "not wearing a helmet."Well, of course she was not wearing a helmet. She wasn't a downhill racer. She was a celebrity actress taking a beginner ski lesson.
    This horrifying story offers one more lesson that snow and ice are treacherous and, so easily, potentially deadly. My ex-boss, Washington Post Co. owner Katharine (Kay) Graham, died from a slip on ice.
     I once took a pretty low-speed fall on ice while doing a winter run in Washington's Rock Creek Park. My shoulder, nearly broken, hurt for two years. Another slip while walking on Connecticut Avenue nearly broke my arm. Ice is bad news. You hit the ground amazingly fast and amazingly hard, and it's a matter of luck where you happen to land.
     I met Natasha Richardson once, briefly. I was interviewing her late father, the British film director Tony Richardson, at a house he owned or was renting in the Hollywood Hills, in the late '80s or early '90s. He was making a comeback with some film or other. As I was saying goodbye at his door and heading for my car, Natasha Richardson arrived for a visit and we spoke. She seemed down-to-earth as well as quite pretty and smart.
     I am so sympathetic to her husband, Liam Neeson, and their two young children.
     This is one more bad thing in a generally bad time.

An Encounter with John Mortimer

     After a lifetime of meeting accomplished and famous people, almost every day I read a newspaper I see an obituary for someone I have encountered. At my age, which shall go unrevealed here, I expect this process to speed up.

     I read in the Los Angeles Times today that the renowned English playwright, author and lawyer John Mortimer had died Friday at age 85 at his home in Oxfordshire. Mortimer was best known for creating the British television series "Rumpole of the Bailey," based on his own experiences as a barrister at London's Old Bailey, or Central Criminal Court. And he wrote "A Voyage Round My Father," a successful autobiographical play about his relationship with his father, himself a formidable barrister.

    Mortimer's first wife, Penelope Fletcher Mortimer, was well known in her own right as an author, specifically of "The Pumpkin Eaters," a bestselling novel made into a movie.

   When I moved to London for Newsweek with my former wife, Jeanie, in 1972, I was familiar with the Mortimer name and accomplishments. Jeanie set off to do the house-hunting, and after a few weeks of hotel living we signed a deal with John Mortimer to take over the ground lease of a Church of England-owned property on the Little Venice Canal. In England, one nominally buys the "fixtures and fittings" of a leased house, but what's really being sold is the right to take over the lease from the previous tenant and pay the Church a monthly rent.

   Came the day we were to sign the papers, we went to the residence -- the top two floors of a fine old four-story mansion (a wealthy young couple lived downstairs) -- and met John and Penelope Mortimer. He was affable and modest. His wife told a story I've never forgotten. She was the second Penelope Mortimer, it turned out, having wed the 49-year-old writer earlier in 1972 after a divorce from the author of "The Pumpkin Eaters." John called her "Penny the Second."

   The second Penelope told us she smarted daily over the rudeness of people she met. "Ah, Penelope Mortimer," they would say. "How nice to meet you. But are you the Penelope Mortimer?"

   Reading the obit also brought back memories of the house. Built in 1840 or so, it had no central heating. The electric space heaters we had to buy had little effect. London's famous chill froze us, both winter and summer.  

   Over the decades, Penny the Second became the Penelope Mortimer. They were still married when John died -- a marriage that lasted 36 years, with two daughters, including the actress Emily Mortimer.

   Ours was a brief encounter, but I identified with John Mortimer from that time, and rejoiced in his series of successes. He was one of the brightest men I ever met. Rest in peace now, Mr. Mortimer. Well done.