The Story of Bruce McLaren
That wasn't his name, as soon became apparent. The year was 1969; not his birthdate, but indeed the beginning. Of love, though perhaps not that kind associated with it as one might think. He was a child, and in childhood things are highly symbolic —concrete, yet behind the obvious visuals, mostly undefined. He had met the match of his life as boy of eight or nine. He could imagine themselves together... forever. Freedom is power; and he felt the pulse, the rush, the open road. That thrill of the wind, and the win; and he had to have it! It haunted him into adulthood. He had to hold that again —unimagined, even if only for a moment, in minature— to relive those boyhood hours and the life he had so fully imagined as Bruce McLaren. He would hunt down that M8B for any price. He was now retired, and at his leisure. He could afford to spend money for his pleasure. And this was the epitome of it —this yellow vehicle carrying so many memories in a plastic casing, pristine, though fragile—even the paper carton was undamaged, though scuffed a little here and there to emphasize that it was real. Vintage. That replica was there yet just beyond the screen almost, almost, within reach on that barter site, Ebay; all his for under $100. He had his debit card on hand, and the will and determination to buy it out. The only obstacle (so moot to you and I as to seem almost Quixotic) being that he hadn't any Email. The year is 2018, with him of respectable age, and nary an email!! And just when he began to think he'd have to lick his chops and relish the picture like a double page spread in a magazine... he found salvation, in all places, at the public library, where the clerk walked him through what then appeared like an open threshold... and before he knew it he'd pressed yes and had confirmation in numbers and symbols that the memento was purchased, sealed and soon to be delivered: by Friday. That is to say, Oct the 19th... and that subsequent Saturday he returned and showed it to me, because I was that clerk, in this small history. He held up the treasure at the circulation desk, in its plastic cradle, as Precious, and it was clear that it made his heart sing. Emotion rising in his eyes, he smiled and said, "I can't thank you enough. This has been my Holy Grail, the gem of my collection, and I am so very grateful." And he weighed his words as if to balance the trifle and trivial with the heft of the imaginary life within it. The Quest completed: "Thank you! Really; for having a part in it." His name was Frank Young. Honest. But to me this will always be the tale of Bruce McLaren and the famed M8B Can-Am 1969. The story of a silver haired youngster who so strongly believed what he once internally lived, and saw it out with persistence as real in this strange symbolic way... for this sense of... fulfillment.