7/6/05; by Ruth Zaslow

Field Interviews

A Ford Ranger pick-up and a Subaru Forrester. They're both red. We've always had red cars.

Well, for the last eight years. One time, we were driving at Crater Lake in the snow-our car at the time was a silver white color. So was the car in front of us. But we could hardly see it in the snow. We figured if we could hardly see that car, people could hardly see us. We decided to get red cars from then on, so they'd always be easy to see.

The pick-up is mine. I drive it to work, when I do drive to work. I drive it on errands. We also use it at the farm. The pick-up is Benjamin's (husband). He drives it to work; we take it on road trips.

We own 40 acres in the Willamette Valley-actually it's in a family trust. Most of the land, the farmhouse and the buildings have been in Ben's family for three generations. We have tenants in the farmhouse, but we go down there about once a month to oversee upkeep of the entire property. That's when we use the pick-up. We might bring tools with us; we might be hauling manure around down there-we might be clearing out an area. Depends on what time of year and what projects we're working on.

We're usually talking about what we'll be working on at the farm. We're both so crazy-busy with work during the week that it's the only time we get to talk about it in detail.

We might listen to a little NPR.

When the two of us are in the car-no. Benjamin hates noise in the car. So, we don't listen to music. And we have so much to talk about. When I'm driving by myself, I usually have NPR on, or I'm listening to CD's.

Jazz mostly. Then there are individual artists or groups I like. The Dixie Chicks. Janis Joplin. Frank Sinatra.

They come in three flavors. We might drive to Portland to visit Emily and Jamie (two of their children) and Benjamin's mom. We do that about every other month. We might drive to Sacramento to visit Eric (son) Maria and the kids. We do that maybe twice a year. Or we might just take a trip, like the one this spring out to eastern Washington to poke around some of the towns there.

It's more comfortable for trips-it's basically a station wagon. So it has more seats; we can take people out for dinner; it has cruise control; we can pile our baggage in and it's not in an open bed like it would be in the pick-up.

We listen to the radio off and on-usually to NPR. Mind you, we're listening because Benjamin is checking to see if his sites are on. So, he's listening to the signal, not to the content.

Ben's a radio engineer. He's too modest to admit it, but he's literally one of the best in the world at what he does. He runs a specialized firm with Jim Hatfield. They all do projects all over the world.

We mostly talk. Again, our crazy busy schedules. This is a time for us to catch up with each other. We talk about work, children, books, clients, his crazy mommy.

We look at maps. We're always looking for a more interesting way to go. Off the freeway, through a town we haven't been to, a less traveled road.

Benjamin has a handheld one. It's not built into the car. He likes to check out elevation with it. So we might pull off a high pass or part of the road and he'll take a reading. But that's all we use it for. Another thing we're doing on these trips: we're reading the Lonely Planet Guide book to see where to stay or eat.

Like I said, we don't know at the beginning of the day what route we'll take or exactly where we'll end up. So we can't book anything ahead. But by about noon or two, we usually know from the map a couple of places we might want to spend the night. So, I look in the guidebook. I read out the entries. And we decide. We use my cell or Benjamin's to make the reservation. It's nice. Makes the rest of the day more relaxing-we don't have to worry about it.

Well, we do have a terrible habit of showing up in the smallest places just when they're having some unusual and huge event. We don't have a TV at home, so we miss these things. Like we got trapped in the Omak Stampede one weekend. Another time, we were out past Yakima and there was some tri-state volleyball championship going on, of all things.

Now what would really be interesting would be a sort of traveler's radio. You know: “here's what's going on in Fargo today.” Here are activities. Here are hotel vacancies. Right now, we can pick up the weather channel on the radio. So, we could have the same thing for site seeing and hotels. That would be fun!

Like I said, we don't have a TV. TV is just too stupid for words. A complete waste of time. Benjamin's made a sound system for us that we use all through the house. I think he enjoyed working on the thing more than he enjoys listening to it. We listen to the radio sometimes-NPR again. When we have friends over for dinner, we put on some music. CD's. Latin, jazz, mostly non-vocal.

They're stacked on a shelf so we can see the titles. No other order.

Not sure if this counts, but of course we use the computer. I might work on documents from work; I email friends, the kids, and I download photos from my camera.

It's a digital camera. This is a new one. Smaller than the old one I had. I take pictures of farm projects, home projects, kids and grandkids.

I'm on my computer all the time. I use the whole Office package: Outlook, Word, Excel. Also Photoshop and Pagemaker. I also use MarketEdge. It's a relational database.

A VW Bug. I was in college. Lot's of people had them. It was cheap to run and fun to drive.

I think so . . . yes. I've had three VW's and three pick-ups.

I liked the first one. It was cheap and got me around.

I got tired or repairing VW's. (laughter) I needed the hauling capacity. Benjamin had another car, so this was a second.

Not much has changed. I'm not that interested in cars. I don't like fancy cars. Good gas mileage has always been important. Reliability has always been important. Safety-very important. It also has to be comfortable to drive. To me, a car is simply for transport or hauling. It's not a symbol of anything. Certainly not a status symbol. My value as a person isn't determined by the car I drive. And on the practical level, I don't want something so nice, I have to worry about damage, theft or anything else.

My grandparents always had pick-ups. They lived in the country. My parent always had sedans, something reasonably nice, not expensive.

I don't think of my emotions as driven by a car. But if I think about it for a moment . . .I'd say: vacations with my parents. We'd go camping. My parents, me and my sister. Sometimes we'd take Sunday drives.

My parents were usually talking to each other in the front seat. My sister and I were in the back. We were usually fighting.

Not really. No radio. Occasionally, we'd play the license plate game. We were both prone to getting car sick., so we definitely weren't reading. My father would be chain smoking. That would really make us sick.

Well, we always had fun when we got to wherever we were going. We were always allowed to drink pop, and we were never allowed to do that at home. That was never served in the house.

These days, we don't have to prioritize. We can spend what we want. But expensive cars aren't a value we hold. When we buy a car, we look for something that will do the job we need it to do, and then we write a check. These people who go into debt for a fancy car-I just can't understand that.

I pick mine and Benjamin picks his. Of course, we don't do all the work ourselves. We use a car shopper. We don't like to spend more time than we have to on this purchase, so we use Car Finders, a woman there named Gail. We tell her what we want, and what we want the car to do, and what we want to spend. She makes recommendations. We go see the cars. She buys them. She has relationships with the dealers. She charges us $200-$300 and we love it. We don't have to deal with car people.

The people at the dealerships: they're creepy. The workers always seem odd. There isn't anyone there who really wants to help. I don't like to negotiate. The price should be the price. I hate all that “let me go see what my manager will let me do” crap. With our car lady, the only thing we do at the dealer is test drive the cars. We eliminate all the creepiness and crap. The whole dealership culture is strange and bizarre. And it's like some weird eastern bazaar, where there is no fixed price and a lot of energy goes into trying to find that best price. A waste of time and energy as far as I'm concerned.

I'd have to rate it a second choice. I like our car lady. At this point, she knows our preferences and there's a lot we don't have to tell her. We don't have to say: “Benjamin is 6'2” tall. So it's simpler to work with her. Less work. More efficient. She has our data.

Better reliability. In Seattle, you don't want your car to break down. On most roads here, the immediate fall out is a disaster. And then there's the matter of needing a car to get almost anywhere in this city.

Better gas mileage, more compact. I'm interested in the hybrids, but they still seem expensive. We have a friend who's a reporter who says the premium people are paying for a Prius never costs out. Plus, there is some problem with battery dying. I think people are buying them because they want to make themselves feel better-they're doing something for the environment by conserving oil. But they don't realize that the real gas hog isn't individual consumption, but industrial consumption. And when it comes to environmental impact, what about those Prius batteries? Where are we going to put those damn things and what will be the impact?

Interview 18 (Zaslow)