In the Rearview Mirror

Lisa and I were taking a trip in my old Plymouth. As I looked in the rearview mirror, I noticed that the bottom right corner of the mirror was wearing thin. It is seventy-six years old and not as brilliant as it once was.

When I remodeled the 1950 Plymouth, the mechanic that helped me placed the mirror upside down. He wanted to know how I knew it was upside down. I said that the mirror is the same shape as the rear window. He said he did not know that. I reminded him that most rearview mirrors in older vehicles were the shape of the rear windows.

Looking in the mirror I thought, “How many people had looked in, and adjusted, the same mirror over the seventy-six plus years?” I know that my Uncle Gerald Chapman bought the Plymouth in the 1950s. He looked in and adjusted the mirror many times. I wondered how many people had done the same task from the time the mirror was installed until I adjusted it for our drive.

Seventy-six years of looking at what was behind and going away. I imagined the stories the mirror could tell and the places left behind. Did the mirror laugh as people looked into it and made funny faces, fixed their hair, or picked their nose?

The mirror always told the truth as people’s hair turned grey or loose. It patiently watched as women put on makeup or lipstick and as kids looked at one another and made goggle eyes when corrected. It always showed the various activities inside the car and those happenings fleeing behind. The mirror always spelled signs sdrawkcab.

Grandpa Chapman bought the Plymouth from Uncle Gearld. When he looked in the Twentieth Century mirror it reflected the lines and wrinkles of a dying Nineteenth Century, the experiences of WWI, the hardships of the Great Depression, the victorious hope of WWII, the rock and roll of the fifties, and the radical changes of the sixties.

Unable to continue looking in the mirror, dad bought the Plymouth from grandpa as a work car making the Hoppers a two-car family. I remember daddy looking over his glasses and into the mirror that was keeping watch on the Hopper boys. The mirror allowed us to see “the look” that spelled trouble when things in the mirror stopped moving.

That old mirror watched me when I was ten years old learning how to drive. It watched as momma screamed, fussed, and cussed as I tried to shift from first to second and made the gears grind, the car bunny hop, and Bobby cry.

I inherited the Plymouth when I was fourteen years old. The mirror would show me my frustration when I repaired the constant breakdown of parts. The mirror would show me my disappointment every time the car would not start. The mirror gleamed at me when I saw the new interior and paint job for a summer’s wages.

The mirror would wink when I looked in it to see if I looked good enough to pick up my date. It watched as I sneaked a kiss or shyly hugged my girlfriend. It was always faithful to show me where I had been. It was wonderful to look in the mirror and watch my date wave goodbye.

It a good thing that that rearview mirror cannot talk. It has witnessed so many events, been eyewitness to numerous changes, and bystander in time as we are well into the Twenty-first century. There will be more events. Looking in the mirror reminds us to adjust and watch what is behind. It helps us to look forward. That in the mirror is gone, but when we gaze into it we see the present.

On our ride to town, I smiled at Lisa and said, “If this mirror could talk!”

 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14 KJV