An eighty-year-old showed me what persistence actually means

01Lived

When I moved from Tennessee to North Carolina I stayed in a motel for a week and became very friendly with the owners, their son, and the staff. One day I came in from work and they all rushed towards me, pointing. The motel was basically a courtyard, mostly closed except for one small entrance, with the main building behind reception overlooking it. Across three or four parking bays, not just one, sat what I can only describe as a huge Addams Family vehicle, tower and everything. Long story short: it belonged to a woman in her eighties, and she was convinced she had designed the next great American car. The Addams Family car was the model. She built the body of the car out of papier-mache, with, I expect, the help of friends. The annual event went as follows: she made it, drove it up from Atlanta, Georgia, all the way up the East coast, staying at this motel on the way, and showed it to some significant or senior people at the car maker, most likely Chrysler or AMC. And in fairness to her, if any company was ever going to say yes, it was AMC, legendary for producing some of the most eccentric, unusual and roundly mocked car designs in American history. They said no. Not now, not this, just no. Then she drove it all the way back down, and the weather tore it to bits. The next year she began rebuilding it, and she did the same thing all over again.