This article discusses Michelle N. Friedman as a child.

Screams and Blood

She was screaming, and there was blood, a lot of blood everywhere.

It matched the color of our car. That red Olds Cutlass Supreme.

Our 1969 Olds Cutlass Supreme in Poughkeepsie.

After Michelle was ex utero and in-car, she loved going for rides. Though we placed her safely in the back seat, she insisted on being where she could see out of the front windshield.

With predictable results.

Beautiful Baby Michelle & a Beautiful Olds Cutlass Supreme

 

As I'm the story-teller I get to say how I remember it. You can edit it if you like. Later.

Hey Michelle, this photo - below - is one of the early ones in which you appear - along with your mom, Harriet Bernice.

OK so by the time of this story you were out: you'd been born and were big enough that you wanted to go for a ride. But first we had to bring you home from Vassar brothers - a trip you made in the same Olds Cutlass.

...

You grew fast and in just moments you were big enough to ride in the back seat. As you grew, we had a special bond, and you were very affectionate.

When traveling, your mother and I experimented with methods that might help assure your safety. But you were not enthusiastic about any of them except motorcycles and cars.

...

It didn't take your parents long to find out that when we took baby Michelle with us to visit friends, things got sticky, loud, and difficult after a time, but every single time we gave up on socializing and plugged you into the back seat of the Olds to head home, every single time, before we'd driven two blocks you would be sound asleep. You did like that car.

On this particular joy ride with baby Michelle, we started you out in the back, as good, loving, responsible parents will do with their children.

Despite our placing you safely behind the passenger seat, you'd scooched over and were sitting in middle, as you insisted you wanted to see ahead; You were never a model of obedience.

One of us - I forget who was driving somewhere in Po-town - but I think it was I - suddenly had to hit the brakes. The heavy Olds with feeble rear drum brakes needed a firm brake pedal stomp. You flew between the seats. Your cute little face hit the front dashboard - I don't recall a complications from a CB radio. But there could have been.

You were crying and there was a LOT of BLOOD.

Harriet and I were scared we'd nearly killed you. Blood everywhere. We careened the Olds onwards to the hospital, probably Vassar Brothers, while one of us held a tissue (or maybe a diaper, I forget) against your face, offering comfort of course. Your muffled screams came through anyway, and blood dripped onto your parent's lap. Would you be scarred for life? Maimed?

By the time we got to actually see a doctor the bleeding had stopped, you were laughing at the nurses and trying to steal a collection of forceps;

The doctor looked briefly at your swollen lip and told us

She's fine, take her home.

Of course other wounds were in your future.

Or maybe you had stitches then and I've simply improved the story in my memory.

You won't remember but this Cutlass had a long narrow dent in the front right fender.

The Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme was first sold by GM in 1966 when I was taking photographs of Panmunjom and the North Korean general in his checkered socks. The two-door hardtop coupe (mine) was introduced the following year, in 1967 while I was attending programming school in Japan. This special, luxurious automobile sported a vinyl bench seat with arm rests. There was a faster model, the Olds -442 that would have been too much for me when, in 1969, employed as an IBM engineer and having moved to a town I'd never heard of, Poughkeepsie (spelled in variants on local signs put up by residents who couldn't agree), I bought my - or I should say, our - "Cutlass".

This was by far the most-expensive car I'd ever owned: a Cutlass Supreme - it cost $3,700. A thousand dollars more than other Detroit cars I had considered. Think "Diana Ross" a different product of that city. The car, not the singer, seemed so... extreme, ... Cutlass Supreme.

Still, I was excited to have this well-made luxurious machine; later models had 4-wheel disc brakes, replacing the feeble rear drum brakes that our car had - making it a little difficult to stop.

The first time I tried to park the Olds was inside of a dim arking garage. I was backing into a cramped parking space, looking over my shoulder when I felt a THUD! The car wasn't a week old and already, a THUD!

I had hit a boat! Yes a BOAT - parked in the adjoining space. The bow of the boat made a nice long boat-bow-shaped crease in the supremely red front right fender.

I just could NOT call USAA to put in a claim (it wasn't that big a dent anyway, maybe nine inches?) - I mean, how do you tell your insurance company that you just ran your car into a boat?

After that I only parked in open parking lots and preferably where there was at least one empty parking space on one side.

Your mother kept the car and was supposed to return it to me after we'd been separated for 5 years. The deal was, I'd buy Harriet a NEW car and I'd get the old one back.

Knowing she was going to give it back to me, needless to say, it wasn't kept in .... shall we say pristine condition?

We met in New York City at the sales office of some fleet company who offered me a good price on Harriet's new car.

Harriet got the new car title, and the new car keys, and we walked down with the salesman to put her in her car.

Harriet dropped the Olds keys into my hand, grinned and was about to drive off when I stopped her.

Where'd you leave the Olds? I asked.

Oh, no worries, ... she smiled. I left it parked on the street, right in front of this building.

In New York City, on the street in a no-parking zone, is what she could have said.

The car was GONE. Totally gone. Not even an oil drip stain marked where it had been "parked right in front."

The nice policeman explained it to me.

You can get your car back, son, no problem, he nodded.
You'll just drive down to the lower east side to the car pound where we take towed cars and you can get it back. .... It may be an hour or so before it's there and logged-in.

I cabbed down to the NYPD Towed-Car impound lot - the taxi driver knew exactly where it was.

Of course there was the matter of a small fine, maybe $100.
Plus a towing fee.
Plus a storage fee.
Plus a NYC tax and an administration fee.

Anyway it was dark when, finally, I slid into the seat and inserted the key - yes Harriet HAD given me the keys - and started the car.

Driving up the West Side Highway I sang a song whose lyrics I wrote about disaster: Please help me I'm fallin' through the West side HIGH Way, can'tcha hear me I'm callin? won't you send help my way? (To the melody from a country hit: Hank Locklin's "Please Help Me, I'm Falling" by Don Robertson)

As I sang, the car kept time, bouncing up and down like a pogostick. Its shock absorbers were totally gone. The boat-dent was still there and the car still ran.

Singing my way back up Route 9, I didn't care. I was to own, sell or give away this car three more times (Eric Borschenius, Maggie Easterlin, and Rob Waterman) before Rob drove it over an concrete island in Brooklyn, knockng the motor and transmission into the street. The1969 Oldsmobile Cutless Supreme, with its dented red fender and black fake leather top was my tired Old red dog. It would keep coming back to me.

Years Later Michelle said:

You had the wheel, didn't you Dad!

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