Aftermarket Center Caps

The men in my life are diverse, so when trying to size them up I use their relationships with cars as a way to help me understand them better.

My father is outdoorsy - a geologist by profession, although now retired. Chip a rock here. Collect a fossil there. He is a man's man, but has never shown any fondness for machinery. Although raised to be a gentleman, motors and gears had a way of bringing out the inner beast. Some of my earliest memories involve my dad bent over some motor, cussing out the Industrial Age.

Dad would change tires on our VW camper vans when necessary, but would never have been one to fawn over chrome grille work or aftermarket center caps. He might pour some water in the radiator or dab Rust-oleum on oxidized patches on our van, but scrubbing headlights with toothbrushes or running Q-Tips around dashboard knobs were not things that happened in our garage.

My father-in-law, on the other hand, is a car man all the way. He knows make, model and year of everything that's probably ever traveled the Pennsylvania turnpike. Scrubbing whitewalls or ogling a 1962 Chevy at the Antique Car Club rally is his idea of a well-spent Saturday.

Growing up in rural northern Pennsylvania, he quickly graduated from pacifier to wrench and pitchfork. Farm boys learned the ABCs of mechanics along with animal husbandry at an early age. The affinity with motors and wheels and all the associated gadgets stuck, although fondness for animals did not. He left the farm to go to college and never looked back.

My husband is a professor like his dad and his father-in-law, but that is where the resemblance ends. He does not camp, collect rocks or meticulously clean his vehicles. His idea of a good Saturday is sipping coffee at Starbucks, grading exams and tripping along the bunny trails that are Facebook.

He puts gas in the car, but would be more likely to use aftermarket center caps as paperweights on his desk, than as a cool way to pimp his ride. He vacuums his vehicle bi-annually, but is content to drive about town with "Wash me!" scrawled above his rusted bumper for a year at a time.

My daughter's boyfriend is a juiced up version of my father-in-law. (I think they would bond quickly if sent together on an errand to a car parts store.) The Boyfriend got a performance exhaust kit for Christmas and is happy as a clam now that his car's tailpipe rumbles deeply, letting everyone know he has arrived. "I can hear him coming a mile away," my daughter smiles, obviously in the throes of young love.

Yes, men and their relationships with cars are complicated. Sometimes these relationships reflect an expression of a man's masculinity, while others treat vehicles as a foe - a necessary nuisance to conquer or at least endure.

Some name their cars, and others blaspheme them. Some treat their vehicles with TLC, while others cop bragging rights because their car or truck is beat up or has the most mileage. Car stories are exchanged over beers, like war stories used to be shared around a campfire.

Why else is the auto industry able to sell billions of dollars of chrome, rims, seat covers, backup sensors, window tinting, fancy headlights, dashboard accessories and aftermarket center caps, tailpipes, hoods, car alarms and decals?

Whether the wheels in the driveway are fodder for cursing or cooing, I think there's some inevitable mechanical mojo going on - something akin to "If you build it, he will come."