This man and his car matched.

His car is a Studebaker Lark; the very first car I can remember is a Studebaker Lark station wagon. It was the exact color between brown and pink, which is a most unfortunate color anyway, but is particularly bad on a car. For a long time after my dad replaced that car we would still see it around town, often parked behind a big house that was close to where my piano teacher lived.

And that’s the thing about having lived in Lubbock for 85% of my life: every single memory opens up a path to other memories so now instead of thinking about that car we had, I am going to spend some time remembering how much I hated taking piano lessons and how spectacularly bad I was. Here’s a piece from an essay I wrote about taking piano:

Most of my friends took lessons from piano teachers who were part of something called The Guild, which had competitions on Saturdays throughout the year.  Miss Ruth wasn’t part of this, so we didn’t have the chance to compete to win ivory-colored busts of Beethoven or Mozart.  Even though I wasn’t good and would have hated the pressure of performing and competing, I still felt like we got cheated by having to take lessons without the possible reward of plastic statuary.

Lubbock, Texas
photographed 5.3.2025