One day, my dad, then 85, settled into his recliner and calmly announced that he was thinking of buying a pickup truck, putting a camper top on it, and then,”I’ll follow one of the old Federal routes from coast to coast.”
I was ecstatic. The very idea that he was even thinking of doing something so audacious, so impractical, meant he was still alive. Of course he was alive; he had just moved his body from a standing to a seated position. But I mean alive alive, beyond just a beating heart and gas exchange in the lungs. He was alive and still tuned in to the manquest.
A manquest comes to the attention of the world when a man purses his lips, looks blankly off into the distance and announces, “you know one of these days I’m going to….”
This is followed by a description of a task or act that a more sane person, including some men, but definitely the majority of women, not only sees no particular need for but, in fact, would consider the announced quest to be a colossal waste of time and resources, or better yet, downright dangerous.
Drive down any street or road and glance into backyards, farmyards, and even apartment parking lots. Chances are you will see at least one manquest or the residue of a manquest long forgotten.
Rotting motorcycles, faded boats under shredded canvas covers, cars melding their rust with the soil, or even, something like one of my favorites, a full size, sagging, disappearing behind Chinese Elm saplings, back yard railroad baggage car.
I can just hear the conversation between this railroad man wanna be and his significant other. “Well, honey, I can get it for next to nothing. I’ll bet for a hundred bucks, I can get Fred to put it on his flatbed next time he’s between runs. All I really need to do is hire a crane to load it and unload it. Then I’ll just have to restore the interior, paint the outside. I’m thinking I’ll put a pool table it there and a bar…”
Go ahead and imagine the significant other’s reaction. Or go ahead and laugh. Whatever the action and the reaction involved in this case, there it sits, a 40 ton monument to what one man and a lot of, but not quite enough, determination can create.