A Red MG (reflections on another age)

photo via

Now an MG  is a "Roadster."   In ordinary language, it has two seats....There is an open
space behind the seat for the top to fold down into when you drive with the top down.

With the top up, you can carry paper sacks filled with groceries...About 5 sacks worth cram
it to capacity.........The owner's manual forbade  in very  harsh language the use of the rear
deck for passengers......Children were forbidden to ride there, and this was in underlined
bold  print......

So, did I ever violate this most virulent of  warnings?   Hey, C'mon, guys!   You know  the
answer to that....Of course I did!   The secret of doing it with any degree of comfort lay in
taking apart the cloth top and removing the metal framework....It was an involved process,
but it was done often........Putting it back on was worse than taking the top off.

So, who did I carry back there?   Well, on  more than one trip, Mary drove and I rode back
there........best example?    Well, when we took Grandma Icel  to her very favorite Mexican
food place on her birthday......You couldn't ask a lady in her 80s  to ride back there, and
Mary steadfastly refused to try it.........It wasn't all that bad, but it wasn't all that great either.
I got some bruises  that  were difficult to see without two mirrors.....

Ana Beth rode back there several times.......Did she get bruised?    Hey, if you think I'm
going to ask her, you're crazy!    I mean, there are limits imposed by decency  involved
here.   I'd like to think that the damages to her anatomy were minimum...but, I'd just as
soon not know. Lord knows, I tried to be gentle and avoid the bumps.

I carried Brenda and Dusti a lot of places.......Though the question doesn't apply.
Brenda would never put down her baby anyplace.....She carried her every mile of
the trip.   Why, a couple of times, I had  3 ladies sitting on the rear deck with their feet
on the  ledge......That was during parades in Dulce and the ladies were beauty contestants.

I mean, there was status in being carried in the back of the smallest motor vehicle in
Dulce......This was before ATV's.  Everybody else got to stand up in the bed of a pick-up.

So, we've established that an MG is a nominal 2 seater that can carry up to 5 people in
a pinch.......Providing 3 of the passengers are 16 year old Apache girls.

Mary and I put 186,000 miles on that little car.......Would I own one again?   My heart
says Yes......I fear the rest of my body  would veto the idea.   Why, I could even ride Ana-
Beth up to Cedar Crest and back, and she could even sit in one of the seats this time.
It wouldn't be the same without her mother along; but , I don't know, maybe she would
be  with us.......I'd like to think she  would be.