Understand: I had never seen a DeLorean Motor Car in motion.
Yet, there it was, like a sentry, slowly rolling up to the red light behind our ill-fated camper as its new owner rounded the corner of Lemon and College.
We had bought it with my study leave in mind, and we did it a bit hastily.
Point to us if you need an example of people literally putting the cart before the horse. In this case, a “cart” would’ve cost us an additional $35,000 (at least) for a good one.
That expense combined with the increasing anxiety I was feeling about storing the thing on a city driveway and getting horrible gas mileage to boot, pushed me into For Sale mode.
I took the DMC sighting as a kind of confirmation that we had done the right thing by unloading it on RVTrader.® It had sold in 24 hours.
I was explaining the DeLorean moment to my neighbor Greg and offered up three interpretations of it: Coincidence, Convergence, or a Sign.
He went on to talk about how his Dad once bought a DeLorean at an auction and how poor the visibility in the dang thing was.
Thanks, Greg, I love car talk too, you know, but I’m having a moment here.
He’s probably in the first camp with the coincidentalists. Fair enough.
Convergence is a deeper take on coincidence. It simply affirms that human life is grandiose and mysterious. Weird, explainable things happen occasionally that just defy mere naturalistic explanations.
I’m attracted to that, but I’m not really into the New Age. (Crystal Blue Persuasion is one of my favorite songs, come to think of it).
It’s what Peter Gabriel sings about in "More Than This” on the album Up which is your homework for today.
The DMC represents the convergence of three phenomena:
A. Being a car guy, I actually noticed a driving DMC.
Most folk, I daresay, would’ve missed that, possibly tucking away a mental blip: “Hhhm, that was a shiny and short vehicle. Forget that.”
B. A friggin’ DMC was being driven by a mop-top 20 Something in Lancaster City on a boring Tuesday morning on a mundane street!
This was a one pony car show, an outlier, a fluke, a real wingdinger.
C. A momentous occasion was taking place for an urban couple after six months of anxiety over how they could realistically own and operate a 23’ Forest River Wolf Pup Toy Hauler, model RJB18.1
This was no ordinary sale like getting rid of some gently-worn running shoes on Facebook Marketplace. Our disappointment was real, and our relief profound.
It was us jettisoning a dream (and making most of our money back, thanks to shortage of campers, thank you very much).
I have a tough time believing that the convergence of these three phenomena means absolutely nothing.
Coincidence? Convergence? Something else? What if it was, in fact, an epiphany, a sign?
I took it that way, anyway, and who’s to stop me?
I do believe in a God who is personal and a good heavenly Father, so I have no problem thanking him for throwing in the DeLorean as a cherry on the sundae.
You can decide how you take that event or any other event that touches you deeply as you marvel at the unlikely strands of life that come together into a solid Thing.
I’ve seen the odd D.M.C. at car shows, and like you, I recall vividly the l.e.d. dashboard in Back To The Future because it was freaky. Time travel is like that. It’s also freaky, to me anyway, because the date on the dash is my birthday.
On OCT 26 1985 I had just married R.J.B. and turned 23. I’m not going to try to interpret any of that, but it sure feels important somehow.
After months of research and two camper shows, we landed on this model as perfectly suited to our trekking dreams, and its initials line up perfectly with Rebecca Johnson Becker.