My Dad's Porsche
Lori Narlock
Over the weekend, I drove up to the cabin for a day to help with some roadwork. We worked on the steep stretch of road between the first gate and the hairpin turn where the cow is. As we dug a ditch for rainwater and filled in the big rut already there, Gina stood back and said, “I can’t believe your father drove a Porsche up this road.”
It was when I was nine-years old.
My parents divorced after being married for a decade. They were both in their late 20s with lots of wild oats to sow. Within minutes of separating they both purchased sports cars. My mother traded in a VW bug for an MG and my father gave up the practical family wagon with a window that rolled down in the way, way back for a Porsche Targa.
My dad bought that Porsche and put his three children in the back, Gina in the front and drove us to the cabin.
Today the road is so rutted there’s no way a car that low would make it up but even back then it had to have been quite a triumph.
That win was no doubt short lived because on the way home he stopped in Cloverdale at the Foster Freeze. He bought us all frosties then hit the road with the roof open.
Ice cream went flying everywhere. There was no way to contain it. I can still remember the feeling of ice-cream soaked hair sticking to my face.
That trip could never be replicated today. There’s no room for seatbelts or car seats in the back of a tiny sports car and even if there were, a car like that would bottom out at the first rut in the road.
