You never know where the conversation is going to lead when the regulars get together at the Grounds for Divorce and the Folgers is flowing. Yeah, it’s usually always auto-related, but that can mean so many things to so many different people.
The other day there was a pretty big group assembled at the big roundtable in the middle of the cafe when out of nowhere Rex, the pharmacist over at Rex Hall Drug, out of the blue says something about 1948 Ford convertibles being iconic. Chad, being on the younger side, didn’t even know what one looked like. Also being on the younger side, it didn’t take him seconds to pull out his iPhone and find one for reference. He didn’t seem overly impressed.
“Don’t know how that’s iconic,” Rusty from the hardware store noted. “Just the last of the warmed-over pre-war models before the all-new shoebox Fords came out in 1949. What’s so special about it?”
Then, Chad’s eyes lit up like he’d noticed something he hadn’t seen before. “Wait! That’s the Ford that was in Karate Kid. Didn’t even recognize it at first. Yeah! Wax on, wax off!” The reference went right over Pastor Peterson’s head, him not ever having seen the movie.
But then Rusty said, “Yeah. But that’s not the most iconic movie that featured a ’48 Ford convertible.” Everyone looked at him so he could finish his thought, something that doesn’t happen every time he speaks. “Are you kidding me? That’s what Biff drove in Back to the Future! Only one of the best movies of all time. Come on!” Everyone thought back and nodded in begrudging agreement. “It’s the one he was driving when the truck load of manure filled it up while he and his buddies were chasing Marty around the square!”
Lucinda noted silently how odd it was that Rusty could remember that particular detail from a movie that came out 40 years ago, but can’t remember what aisle the garden rakes are on.
And then Sister Thelma spoke and surprised everyone around the table. “The most iconic ’48 Ford convertible is the one used in GREASE. The one created by Danny Zuko and his fellow Thunderbirds in the auto shop. The one they sang the song Greased Lightning as they danced all over it.” Lucinda nodded in agreement.
The other guys sitting around the table were not given to watching musicals. But it was a movie that had come out in their youth that all of them had seen. After all, there were a lot of classic old cars used in the movie, and Olivia Newton-John in black leather was a sight to behold.
Chad, always busy on his iPhone, had pulled up Hot Wheels editions of all three of the movie cars, confirming for everyone that they were indeed iconic. “If Hot Wheels is going to make a model of it, it has to have a cultural impact,” he noted. “They even have the model of Biff’s Ford from Back to the Future full of manure!”
Lucinda noted that the same could be said of several of the guys around the table.
“I’m surprised you’re a fan of GREASE, Sister Thelma,” Chad noted. “It doesn’t seem like it would be something you’d enjoy, what with the sexual references, smoking and adult themes.”
Sister Thelma was taken aback.
“Why Chad, my son, nothing could be further from the truth. The movie is a religious journey from start to finish, reflecting the journey we all must take at one point.” Sister Thelma seemed dead serious.
“Do go on, Sister,” Lucinda said as she filled up the CMC mugs all around the table with fresh Folgers from the Bunn-O-Matic.
“How does the movie begin?” she asks the gathering around the table.
“With Danny and Sandy at the beach. At the end of the summer. Sandy is about to go back to Australia and Danny is about to go back to school at Rydell High for his senior year,” Rex noted. As soon as he said it, he was embarrassed that he admitted to the group how familiar he was with the plot.
“Exactly,” Sister Thelma nodded. “But Sandy never goes back to Australia, does she?”
“No, she stays in America and goes to Rydell High, just like Danny,” Chad says.
Sister Thelma has a sweet smile come over her face and remains silent for a moment. “No, I’m afraid not. Sandy never leaves the beach. She drowns there in the ocean on the last day she and Danny are together.”
There was just silence around the table.
“The rest of the movie is the final moments of her life as she gasps for air and Danny tries to pull her from the waves, but he can’t fight the current. In real time, it is only seconds. In movie time, it is nearly two hours while what could have been her senior year at Rydell High flashes before her eyes in her final moments on earth.” Sister Thelma takes a sip of coffee and sets the mug back down.
“Damnnnn,” Chad says.
“And in the end, once the celebration of what her life would have been here on earth is concluded, Danny delivers Sandy to heaven in the customized 1948 Ford convertible. The car is named Greased Lightning. The crowd of kids down below waving as she heads to heaven with her true love behind the wheel. Not only is it moving, but it is a story of redemption and hope. Spiritual, I don’t mind saying.”
One by one, the guys around the table got up silently, left the money for their coffee on the table and walked out to the parking lot in silence. They were moved. They each looked at 1948 Ford convertibles in a whole new light as they reevaluated their own lives in Fort Stockton. Soon the cafe was empty, but for Sister Thelma at the big round table, and Lucinda.
“There was more bullshit in that story than there was in Biff’s convertible in Back to the Future,” Lucinda said.
“You take inspiration wherever you can find it,” Sister Thelma said.
Lucinda went to the tall glass pie cooler next to the Bunn-O-Matic and got the last piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie. She put it on a plate and brought it out to Sister Thelma and set it down in front of her.
“No charge,” she said.
10 responses to “GREASED LIGHTNING”
While close, but no cigar, one of the older guys from my HS years drove a black ’48 Mercury convertible with skirts and a continental kit, his nickname on the face of the spare – nice-sounding steel-pak “Smitty” duals backing the flathead, of course. I never owned one of those, but did enjoy a ’48 Chevy, and later a ’51 with a glass-pak before scoring my red ’49 Pontiac convertible the year before going off to college.
Grease was the word.
Now, driving cross-country,
or just a weekend cruise in vintage iron,
my Bayou Lady and I may not recall what we discussed just a short time ago,
but we do recall most of the lyrics, and sing along, when-
Sirius Radio provides some great Doo-Wop !
Fortunately, few, if any pictures exist from the 1950s of me with my greased pompadour and duck tail, wearing the “Club” leopard-print jacket with raised collar and tight black Levi denims with the cuffs folded up.
After reading this I can’t help but think it may have been Sister Thelma who was behind the tale of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” being in sync with The Wizard of Oz movie.
Hey, speaking of’48 Ford convertibles in movies, let’s not forget the one that Phil Silvers destroyed in Its a Mad, Mad, Mad World! Or at least I think it was a 48?? It might’ve been a 46, or 47?
Wow, so much going on here on this one!
My very first car was a 1947 Ford Convertible. Daddy got it for me – it just showed up in the driveway and it was mine to drive to high school! My friends thought it was so cool – it would burn rubber shifting into third gear.
I watch a lot of “black & white” movies on the TMC channel – for several reasons. They’re easy to watch and sleep by! There’s no big gut-sucking, “Don’t go in the cellar!” moments! And, for some reason they are in almost all movies of the 40’s and early 50’s – ubiquitous! I can shout: “There it is!” while Bogart pulls away from the curb, many times with the “Bacall-type” doll! And, they are so aerodynamically built tht no one’s hair blows while riding in one, even at highway speeds.
Have you noticed that the word most often used when expressing amazement, or surprise, or happiness is the word “Wow!” It is so very UBIQUITOUS! Lucinda pops in my mind when…well, you know!
I need to follow Sister Thelma more closely. Her reasoning and comments amazed me!
Also, so I need to watch the movie again – as an older, more astute person.
Movies that I enjoyed: CHEF, CHOCOLATE, SIMPLY IRRESTIBLE, and OFF THE MENU. They seem to be romantic comedies,or involving eating, or romantically eating, or romance on the menu, or…
I think The Captain is keeping Sister Thelma’s cards face down. He has hinted at possibilities before she wore the habit, (eg. Whiskey Daniels on the bleachers while Shannon Hudspeth was in the Press Box ruining reputations), but more than 570 CMC episodes in print and he has kept Thelma’s rep solidly Sandra Dee-ish”. Color me beguiled by her eyes.
Hopefully you caught Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable in “It Happened One Night” on TMC two days ago. Classic Rom-Com before rom-coms were a genre.
“Lucinda noted silently how odd it was that Rusty could remember that particular detail from a movie that came out 40 years ago, but can’t remember what aisle the garden rakes are on.”
Lucinda is younger, but do women’s minds work that much differently than mine? I’ve no problem with remembering things from 40 years ago, but sometimes can’t remember why I entered a room. I generally take that as a sign from God that it’s time for a piece of pie.
20 years ago I owned a 1949 Plymouth coupe that had the roof cut off. Painted white with red flames . It was fun to drive around South Florida. Wish I could post a photo of it here