I Don't Know Why, But I Remember (part I)

I don't know why, but I remember my grandfather's old Saab whenever I see brown leaves. My mother and I were in LA around Thanksgiving visiting my grandparents. I was still in elementary school that year. One afternoon they were all getting ready to leave the house at the same time, and I had to choose who I would go with, out of the three of them. My mother was on her way to the library at UCLA; my grandmother was headed to the mall in Beverly Hills as usual, and my grandfather was going, as he said, "To see a man about a horse." Something about those words held my attention. I stood there on the driveway for one long, uncertain moment, unsure of the meaning in making this choice; did it mean I loved the one I chose more than I loved the other two? And then, to my surprise, I heard myself say, "I want to go with Grandpopop."

My mother seemed pleased, and pedaled off on her bicycle; my grandmother looked miffed and roared off in her Buick. I don't know what my grandfather thought, hardly anyone ever does. It was sunny and crisp that day. He opened the sunroof and and we drove in companionable silence, listening to the radio and gazing through the windshield at the road in front of us. I can't remember where we went, although I have a vague recollection of a man and an elaborately embroidered chair that exchanged hands (this makes sense as my grandfather has owned an upholstery shop on Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica for the past fifty years.) What I remember is my grandfather whistling as we sped down a long hill lined with bushes and trees; and yellow, brown, and orange leaves were falling and floating all along the road around us.