King's Corner: Ah-ooh-ga!
When I was young, I fell in love with a dark blue 1930 Ford Model A Coupe with a rumble seat.
It took nine loads to bring the parts home and another nine months before it became a car again.
In Southern California, where freeways ruled the landscape, it barely kept up with modern traffic. My family thought that made it the perfect first car for a teenage driver. Looking back, they may have been right.
My friend Scott and I met some girls who lived more than an hour north in Ventura. One Saturday we decided to drive up Pacific Coast Highway to visit them. The highway begins in Santa Monica and follows the coastline north.
Two teenagers.
An old car.
What could possibly go wrong?
Stopped at a traffic light, I noticed a California Highway Patrol car pull alongside the driver behind us. After a brief conversation, that driver backed up several car lengths, allowing the patrol car to slip neatly into the space behind us.
Now there were three vehicles in the slow lane.
None in the fast.
The light turned green.
Red lights flashed.
I pulled over.
The officer took my license and registration, then slowly walked around the little coupe.
"Is this yours?"
"Yes."
"Original engine?"
"Yes."
He smiled.
"Mind if we have a look?"
For the next 20 minutes there were no policemen and no nervous teenagers.
There were simply four boys gathered around an old car.
Questions were asked. Stories were told. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry anymore.
The bonnet came up. Henry Ford's wonderfully simple engineering earned fresh admiration. Then somebody found the horn.
"Ah-OOH-ga!"
Everybody laughed.
It was impossible to hear that horn without smiling. Somehow that 40-year-old car had a way of bringing people together.
Eventually another call came over the radio. The officers wished us well and drove away.
Scott and I continued north.
A few miles later we stopped beside an empty 40-seat bus. The driver looked across, slipped into neutral and revved his engine.
"Roar... roar... roar..."
The little coupe answered the only way it knew how.
"Putt... putt... PUTT... putt..."
The bus won one light.
We won the next.
Everything depended on round three.
As I watched the traffic lights, Scott suddenly grabbed my arm.
"Look!"
Parked on the shoulder sat the same Highway Patrol car.
The driver stared straight ahead, determined not to notice anything.
His partner looked across, grinned, pumped his fist and silently mouthed,
"Go! Go! Go!"
The light changed.
The bus gave everything it had.
So did we.
By little more than a bumper, the old coupe reached the intersection first.
Only then did the bus driver notice the patrol car.
He burst out laughing, waved through the window and disappeared into traffic.
For one glorious moment, everybody was part of the same joke.
Scott and I answered in the only language that seemed appropriate.
"Ah-OOH-ga!"
By the time we reached Ventura we'd made two new friends, discovered that city bus drivers possess an excellent sense of humor, and learned that an old Model A had an uncanny ability to gather complete strangers around a shared smile.
I've owned faster cars since then.
I've owned better cars, too.
None has ever made people grin quite so easily.
The next 50 years passed rather more quickly.
Life opened doors I never imagined. I lived in Australia for a season, and China. Somewhere along the way the little coupe disappeared, and I quietly assumed that chapter of life had closed.
Then one afternoon I was driving my dad, Mark King, home from Carson City when we spotted another Model A sitting beside the road.
We stopped.
Dad mentioned it to his friend Tom.
Tom knew a widow named Sandy. Her late husband had dreamed of restoring a 1928 Tudor but never had the opportunity to begin. When Sandy decided it was time for someone else to finish the project, Tom thought of me.
It wasn't another coupe.
It didn't need to be.
One conversation led to another.
Four years later, the Tudor was finished.
My favorite moment wasn't hearing the engine spring to life.
It was standing back and watching Sandy smile.
For a little while we weren't looking at an old car at all.
We were watching a dream finally find its way home.
This weekend that little Tudor will be sitting among the classics at Hot August Nights in Virginia City.
If history is any guide, it won't be long before people begin gathering around it.
Not long before the restoration was complete, I climbed into the driver's seat and rested my hand on one small chrome button.
For just a moment, I was 18 again.
Then I pressed it.
"Ah-OOH-ga!"
The sound hadn't changed.
For just a moment, neither had I.
Looking back, I don't think this story is really about a Model A.
It's about a God who quietly restores more than we ever expect.
Sometimes He uses an old car.
Sometimes He simply gathers people together.
And every now and then, He lets us discover that the joy we thought we'd left behind was never really gone at all.
Jeff Headley is pastor of the Dayton Valley Community Church, and a storyteller who blends humor, honesty, and hope. His weekly column reflects on resilience, grace, and the surprising ways faith shows up in ordinary life.
