Happy Birthday, Mom.

Mom.  In a brown Porsche.

Almost a year after my last post, and a month full of birthdays has come and gone.  Our family has at least a half a dozen birthdays in August as well as a handful of friends, but two birthdays in particular are very important to me in this month, my own on the 25th (shared with Sean Connery, no less) and my mother's on the 13th.  While being mother to such a wonderful son is a gift that keeps on giving, I'm never quite sure what to get Mom for her birthday.  My father generally takes care of bigger gifts and picks up the tab at her birthday dinner, leaving me to look for humorous cards or other tokens of my appreciation for my mommy.

When I was a young lad, I had grand visions of what I was going to get her, but lacking the means to get them, I promised them to her when I was "older."  One such gift that I promised was a Porsche 928.  Mom had a thing for Porsches before I came along, a 912 Targa the first to catch her eye.  As Dad's career moved on up, so did the family cars, including a string of Porsches for Mom.  Before those came along, though, Dad bought our first premium European car, an Audi 5000.  The dealer where he purchased the Audi had a 928 in the showroom which caught Mom's eye.  While she would eventually get her first Porsche a few years later, it wouldn't be a 928.   I was quite a keen car nut already, and since I love my momma, I promised her I would buy her a 928 someday.

Sadly, I never quite got around to buying it for her.

The brown Porsche.

This year, a stroke of genius came over me.  Once I had recovered from this rare occurrence, I put in motion a plan to give Mom the 928 I promised her, even if only for a day.  I have a friend whose car buying activity I once compared to a drinking problem.  His collection includes, among other things, a Porsche 928S4 in a lovely brown metallic.  He also happens to be an extremely generous person, and when I told him the story of promising my mommy a Porsche, he gladly offered his car to me for the weekend,  my plan being to surprise Mom with a Porsche in the garage which she could later drive to her birthday dinner.

I picked up the car on Saturday morning, arriving back at my parents' house while Mom and Chloe, my daughter, were out shopping.  I backed it into the garage in the space normally reserved for Mom's X5.  When she returned home, she noticed an absence of cars in the driveway, most notably my car, which I had left at my friend's warehouse.  When she opened the garage door to pull in, she was surprised to see the sculpted nose of the 928 looking back at her, but immediately recognized it as a Porsche.  She later told me that her first thought upon seeing the empty driveway was:  "Wouldn't it be funny if there were a Porsche in the garage?"  While she had imagined it being black, she was surprised none the less.

No substitute, right?

That evening, she drove the car to dinner and then back home.  It was all very familiar to her, even though her Porsche history had never included a 928.  By chance, I could see where it was parked from our table at dinner.  For a design that first hit the streets in the late '70's, the 928 still gets a lot of positive reactions.  I noticed that almost every man that passed by the 928 gave it a long look.  Seeing it on the road on the way back from dinner allowed me to further reflect on the elegance of the design and the presence a 928 still commands.  I returned the car to it's owner the next day, giving me the opportunity to enjoy one of Stuttgart's finest once more.

Most important, though, was Mom's reaction and reflection on her "gift."  Giving her a chance to get behind the wheel of a Porsche again meant a lot to her.  My wife and I like to give our daughter gifts that last in memories, experiences rather than objects.  That was the goal here as well, and I'm pretty sure this experience will stick.  Happy birthday, Mom.