The Truly Blessed Cadillac

[This is another of several stories I intend to post from now through Christmas or perhaps New Year's.  This one first appeared in my Christmas Memories from Seven to Seventy,  available in paperback from Amazon.com.]

Let me start with three confessions: 
I have never driven a Cadillac. 
I have ridden in Cadillacs very few times. 
I am prejudiced against Cadillacs.
Now, on with the story.

At the end of a Christmas trip, Pansy and I had spent the night in a motel en route home. We ate breakfast, loaded our car, and climbed in, ready to get on the road. As I turned the ignition switch,
I glanced across the way at a bumper plate on the front of a Cadillac which was parked facing us. The tag said, “Truly Blessed.”

I thought, “Yeah, I guess a person who drives a Caddy can brag about feeling truly blessed.” 

As we pulled out of our parking space, and I noticed the license tag on the Buick near us had a
“handicapped” symbol. My uncharitable, un-Christmasy attitude kicked in as I contrasted the two messages: the Buick with the “handicapped” tag and the “Truly Blessed” Cadillac. I could see a
good illustration shaping up for speaking or writing.

Let me help you understand my prejudice: 

When I was growing up, our family didn’t own a car of any make. Most of my peers in high school were driving family cars or farm trucks, but I just considered it a given that their families had
things my family didn’t have.

Lee Roy, my brother who was four years older than me, bought a car when he went to work full-time. In a burst of Christmas spirit, one Sunday afternoon near the holiday, he offered to teach me to
drive his straight-shift vehicle. He drove out on a road which wasn’t heavily trafficked, and we traded places.

I made several attempts to coordinate the clutch, the brake and the gear shift. Each time, the car responded by chugging, jumping, heaving and dying. After I made several abortive attempts, without
any spoken communication between us, Lee Roy and I reached the mutual conclusion that this wasn’t going to work. I turned off the switch, got out of the car, and walked around to the passenger side.

He said nothing to discourage this move. We were both relieved as we returned to our legitimate positions: he as driver and I riding shotgun. So much for his proffered Christmas gift.

I didn’t learn to drive until I was twenty-five and in my first full-time work. The only time I seriously got behind the wheel in those intervening years, I wrecked a used car which I had just bought. So
my history has given me an atypical outlook toward cars.

So why am I prejudiced toward Cadillacs? It’s not just Caddies. I probably would have had the same reaction to “Truly Blessed” on a Lincoln or a Beamer or a Mercedes. My reaction stemmed from growing up car-less. A big, expensive car seems ostentatious.

If I’d read “Truly Blessed” on a lower-range Chevy or Ford – or even an old beat-up Cadillac – I wouldn’t have considered it a boast. But a shiny, new Caddy was different.

I guess you could say I feel “Truly Blessed” driving a Honda which we bought new, but I certainly wouldn’t put a sign like that on my bumper.

I have dear friends who drive Cadillacs. I don’t consider them ostentatious. The difference? I know these people. Similarly, if we know someone close up  from another region or race or religion, our stereotypes toward his or her larger group don’t usually apply because we know that person. 

Someone said prejudice is “being down on some something you’re not up on.”

I wanted to confirm my prejudice against the Cadillac owner.  So, as we left the motel parking lot, I drove out of my way to get behind the Cadillac and look at the tag. I expected to see a vanity tag like “Truly Blessed.” 

I gasped as I saw the Cadillac’s official state license plate. Like the Buick I saw earlier, the Caddy
also had the “handicapped” symbol. 

I had my illustration, all right, but not the one I had expected.

After I had time to reflect on both the front and back bumpers on the Cadillac – “Truly Blessed,” coupled with “handicapped” – my spirit was more in keeping with the true spirit of Christmas:


Now I felt “Truly Blessed.”